PippiKneeSocks.com

My goodness!

Not so impressive… This is how it has pretty much looked all winter…
(But, what is rather impressive is, the temperature! We have double digits! After a week of solidly below zero 90% of the day. Whoo hooo!)

Note the wind damage to the tree on the left, the top is gone. This week a bunch of our trees took a beating.. Our apple trees were especially hard hit.
It has been almost an eternity since I’ve posted a Saturday Sky. I thank you Sandy, for not ruling your webring with an iron fist of doom. For not kicking me out for either my “extremist politics” or my lack of Saturday Sky shots.

I know I mentioned something about posting some shots of my finally finished Pinwheel blanket. But, I’ve been slacking. For a few reasons… Restless kiddos (5 has been on skool vay-cay for over TWO weeks now & 3, well, my sweet little boy won’t leave my side for longer than two minutes…) And well, the blanket, tho, I love it dearly, really isn’t pretty….. (If you have been reading this here blog since way back when I started it, you will remember the yarn was spun at random from all scrap/waste wool from the 200lb bag of scrap/waste I have sitting here.) So, the color combos may hurt the eyes …. Hey, I was trying to recycle my waste, not really make an heirloom. (And, yes, more and!!) It is choc-fulla glaring knitting errors! Riddled, I would say.) So, perhaps on a day when I’m feeling braver…

Speaking of being brave, I suppose it is time I say something publicly…. (Some of you know & I’ve dropped some hints here and there….)
I’ve been signed to write a fibery book.
That might explain my long absences from the blogosphere as of late. (My excuse from before that, laziness.)
Anyway, it’s a bunch of work, and I’m on a super tight deadline, but I’m up for the challenge.. It’s incredible to imagine I can write about what I love to do…
Speaking of my writing… The new Knitty is up, and with that brings the latest installment of “Get Spun” in Knittyspin.
It’s all about the hemp…. Hemp, hemp, hurrah!

I hope you enjoy it & find it useful in your fibery adventures! (If not, I’m apparently up a creek, no?)

I’m giving blogging a go today, even tho bloglines is terribly hysterical.
I know it isn’t just me, so I feel less like a lunatic. If I’ve missed something important of yours, I’m sorry. Not everyone is showing up when they update & bloglines is randomly deciding who has posted 10 times in 5 minutes!! (The first day it started happening, I really thought everyone was going post crazy!)
Things have been busy here, with a side of crazy. (So, normal.)
I’ve been dyeing a bit, spinning a bit & knitting a bit.
Last time I wrote, I had mentioned some FOs.
Shorty socks (that took way too long!)

US size 3s with hand dyed sport weight.(80% wool, 20% nylon)
and since I have issues with project monogamy,
Hemp head

I had put a brim (or 3!) on this one, but wound up ripping it off, each & every time.
US size 8 & 10.5,
Double moss stitch with ribbing
Handspun, bulky+ weight, 60% wool, 40% hemp!
It’s pretty squishy, how I wanted it, hence the double moss stitch.

Since I’m on the subject of FOs I thought I would share Rock star Kay Stanton’s Fo’s with my yarn.

They are for sale over on Pancake Meow.
It is fun seeing my yarn worked up, especially this color shifting one

Time for more coffee, getting eldest off to school & start winding yarn for Friday’s shop update. (I learned my lesson 2 weeks ago, having to wake up at Way Too Early O’clock to wind yarn (and wind, and wind, and wind.)
♥

Occasionally, I do have FO’s… (Yes, for real!)
This is one of those rare events. (Or rarer as of late.)
Some socks, since it is Socktoberfest

They look pretty wonky, lying there on the floor.

They look pretty wonky from this angle, too. Hard to get a good photo of one’s feet with children underfoot.
But, that’s the best I could muster. I have a terrible rash on my feet. (NO! Not from the socks, from the Lupus.) And putting anything on my feet irritates them. Too bad, because my tootsies are cold! (I wonder if sea silk socks would be good?)

Any hoo, the details. You may remember I started knitting them way back here.. (yikes, That was July!)
US size 2 & 3 DPNs
The yarn

Which, you may (or may not) recall me spinning way back here.

• 18 WPI
• hand washed/dyed Vermont rare breed wool
• hand dyed top
• hand dyed nylons
• hand dyed European hemp
• angora (raised by Chris)
• hand dyed silk noils
• recycled silk sari

Sheesh! That is A-lot of hands.. Last I checked, I still only had 2.
Here, is where you can insert a long winded monologue about the pleasure I (we) get from making things with my (our) hands. But today isn’t that day; as i fear it will take me to a place where I am unwilling to go at the moment.
So, use your imagination. Why bother spinning yarn, when you can go to your LYS? Why bother knitting socks, where there is wallfart? Well, you and I know better, now don’t we?

Rock on with your bad selves
♥

it’s friday again, and of course that means fiber friday! this week the topic was critters (and i hope no one caught on, but this was a repeat. i didn’t realize it until after i posted it… but, well, we all need more critters, right?!) remember these ‘unicorn breath’ batts from the other day?… i was unable to keep my hands off them, and i figured; unicorn breath is ‘close enough’ to being a critter; at least it is critter-esque; right? (oh, a stretch you say? well, yea; but come on, humor me!)

unicorn breath
170 yards lace/fingering

• 40% recycled silk sari
• 35% vermont alpaca
• 20% hemp
• 5% nylon

(pretty textural due to the nature of the materials, but shockingly soft, even with the high hemp content.)
really pretty!

and another close up…
if you don’t already participate in fiber friday! a weekly fiber extravaganza i suggest you do, or at least add it to your bloglines. it is fun and inspiring! (and i recently started a photo pool on flickr)

i’m glad it is friday and not thursday. i hope i don’t have a “groundhog day” type day.
yesterday was ONE of THOSE days. the kind of day where once in a lifetime runs thru your head, over and over…. my kids were just off the wall. they don’t often make it so hard on me. by 3pm, you could have stuck a fork in me, because i was d.o.n.e. ~ i needed to retreat to the only sure fire, tried and true method of lowering my BP and catching some inner peace… knitting…

the yarn is some of my worsted handpaints, of seconds quaility… (i was trying for a choco bird but it didn’t come out good enough to put up on pippi)

one really nice/neat thing that happened yesterday…
josi sent this out in her news letter the gist, she is offering a coupon to her customers if they purchase something from pippi or croshay design! ~ (remember croshay made this awesome hat! from some of my hemp yarn??) anyway, my yarn was used in making some pieces for josi’s upcoming book, in the loop… let’s hope her new editor lets her keep it in there! (click on this linky to see the hat/scarf set from my yarn)

i’m going to try to keep it mellow today.
as soon as i stop this tap-tapping; i’m going to return to my knitting.
then dishes and pick up the joint a bit. SIL is in from oregon and i would hate to have her over come with dirty dishes when she walks in the shack.
♥

it’s an illness this week, and i couldn’t stop myself even if i tried.
i’m on such a tear with the carder. (not that it is really a bad thing, but i have other things i should do. like my dye-o-rama yarn… but i’m so incredibly low on dyes i would hate to mess it up and waste dyes & yarn. anyway, DoR pal, you are not forgotten; i just want to make you happy….)
anyway, i worked late into the night last night, on blending up some unicorn breath batts.
what an odd name, you say?! well i can’t take credit for it…i sent one to linda of stoneleafmoon and this is what she had to say about it!!!. her remarks totally made me blush, but truth be told, they are very special batts. (OH! and here it is spun up! go look!!!)
so, i made up 5 of them, then put them by the “fire place” (never you mind that dust there!)

and placed an apple, sweet potato, black bean, chipolte burrito next to them, in hopes of luring the unicorn in, to breathe on them. (it has been confirmed that apple, sweet potato, black bean, chipolte burritos are a favorite snack of the northern glitter tail unicorn)
i think it worked.

unicorn breath

• hemp
• vermont alpaca
• silk sari
• nylon

these are so incredibly intense to make; not to mention messy.
i doubt they will find their way to pippi.
i might spin them up, or they might wind up in your mail box. you just never know, i’m tricky like that.

lucky for me, the kids are well, and dare i say quiet they are sucked into a josie and the pussycats video. (does anyone have VHS anymore? yes, this coming from the last person on the planet without an ipod… haha)
thanks everyone for your well wishes for bells the other day! she is doing better, but, now we have run into some other difficulties.
such is life with youngins!!

♥

sometimes you gotta do it.
every once in a while, you have to spin something so incredibly labor intensive; just because.
the yarn that i’m about to show you is just that type of yarn.
it took me upwards of 14 hours to create. (and i use the word create here instead of make, for a reason…)

i took the rest of these batts

and spun them into this yarn

then i dyed some of my churro, blended it with copious amounts of green and silver tinkle, then blended that with some blue hemp noil batts that i swiped from my page.

i really love love love spinning my batts. i rarley toot my own horn (maybe i should?) but, i do honestly believe my batts kick some serious ass.

then i took these parts, which, were delicious enough on their own

out of many one

a labor of love; happy yarn
316 yards lace wt
(apx 18 WPI)

now, this yarn isn’t what one would call “special” and could not “retail” for upwards of $140 (but how does one put a retail value on love?)
it has no bells or whistles, no coils or bobbs, it won’t self stripe.. like i said not anything really “special” about it.
well, that is unless you are me. (hah)
the sum of it’s parts is what impresses me.

• hand washed & hand dyed fleece
• hand dyed commercial top
• hand dyed nylons
• hand dyed hemp (and dyeing hemp takes just a wee bit more effort than dyeing wools..)
• hand dyed silk noils
• angora
• recycled silk sari

i think it is the perfect union of art and craft. (tho, it clearly isn’t an “art yarn” type)
that is the beauty in all handspun yarns. weather they be pushing thresholds for the outside world, or pushing thresholds in our inner realms. what a great gift bestowed on us fiber artists.

i’m not sure if i pushed anything inside myself with this yarn (maybe i did… just how many different types of unlikley fibers could i jam into one yarn? ha). i did fulfill some desires tho. the desire to grow my stash, perhaps? the moral of the story….. every once in a while, you gots to do for you….

but now i gots to get back to the business of making handspun yarn.
♥

i’ve added two batt sets to the spinning fibers page

in other news, my computer has been acting very strange for the past two days.

i hope it didn’t catch a cold or virus. if i suddenly drop off the face of the internet, you know why.

♥

the handpun yarn shop has been updated with 16 yarns of all shapes and sizes

7 art yarns

3 2ply blends

and
6 bulky thick and thin singles

i even managed to do a good recreation of no foolin
a bit different, but cool, none the less.

fennario

putting that update togethere took me all day, now it is time to hit the yard with the kiddlets
♥