Pineapple Progress

Even with all the spinning hysteria going on around here, I am still making progress on my Pineapple Lace project for the W’s.  I am a little over halfway through the body of the work and thought I would have more finished by now, but I got a bit sidetracked last week with a couple of submission deadlines.  I’m back on track now and hope to be to the pineapple lace border by this coming weekend!

In other news, I ate another 1/4 pound of the salted caramels yesterday.  What the hell is wrong with me?  Since Saturday, that’s a half pound total of butter, sugar, & heavy whipping cream all widening my ass as I type.  Ugh.

But I also started a new workout program today, which I’m hoping will kick start some weight loss. I’ve been doing cardio 4-6 days a week since late December, but haven’t seen the scales move much.  I’m feeling much better and much stronger (which is always good), but I’d really like to shed some of the lbs that keep hanging around.  

So, I’ll continue to keep you all updated with the progress on both the pineapple lace knitting AND weight loss fronts!  Just have to stay away from those damn caramels.

Let the games begin.

So, on Friday I got an email from the company from whom I bought my spinning wheel.  They wanted to let me know that the distributor had accidentally drop shipped a Kromski Sonata to me instead of the Kromski Fantasia that I had ordered.  

They told me that I had three choices: 

1. When the wheel came, I could refuse it and it would be sent back to the distributor. Once they got it back, they would then send the correct wheel.  (In the meantime, I would have to exhibit patience of epic proportions.)

1. I could refuse the wheel when it came and in the meantime they would send me the Fantasia right away, but they would have to charge me for it and then they would refund my money once they got the wrong wheel back. (Initially thought this would be the way I would go, but then what if something happened to the wrong wheel on the way back to the distributor and it never made it?  I would then be on the hook for two wheels. No thanks.)

1. I could keep the Sonata (a $600 value) but only pay the Fantasia price ($478).

My mind immediately began to race. This third choice intrigued me.  The Sonata wasn’t even on my short list, but could it be that someone was trying to tell me something?  That the Sonata was actually the wheel I was supposed to get in the first place?  Or should I really be second guessing myself, since I had done quite a bit of research before finally deciding on the Fantasia.

My gut instinct was that I would refuse the wheel and just wait for the Fantasia, and I even emailed the company to tell them so.  But in the meantime I posted about my dilemma in the Kromski Owners group on Ravelry to see what others might think.

The overwhelming response was to keep the Sonata!  So, after a little more thought, I wrote the company again and asked if it was too late to change my mind.  Luckily, they said it wasn’t too late, so I told them I would be keeping the Sonata.  I felt good about the decision!  It’s amazing what the universe will tell us when we open up and listen. (Okay, that might be a tad dramatic for this particular situation, but it’s good advice nonetheless.)

And I didn’t have long to wait, because yesterday I went to the post office in hopes that the salted caramels I had ordered had arrived (from Be Sweet: go ahead and order some. You seriously won’t be sorry, but you’ll be addicted.)  I DID get my caramels (I ate 1/4 lb of them while I was setting up my wheel and immediately went into a shame spiral about it), but I also got a slip in my box that had ‘LA’ written on it.

My pulse began to quicken. I knew what those letters meant.  LA stands for Loading Area, which means that the package waiting for me is too large to pass over the counter and you have to drive your car around back to pick it up.  This could only mean one thing:  my wheel was here!

I practically skipped out to my car, whipped around into the alley, and pulled up to the back loading doors.  I handed the slip to the lady and happily took into my possession my very own spinning wheel!

I got it home and immediately ripped into the box. I was a little nervous because there were some pretty big puncture holes in the box, so I photographed everything just in case something inside had been damaged, god forbid.  

But I was pleasantly surprised that everything was just as it should be!

I savored every moment of meeting my new wheel, and I even took a couple shots along the way.  It’s such a beautiful piece of work. Even the bobbins are pretty!

You know what was a bonus about keeping the Sonata?  It comes with its very own carrying/storage case.  It's really nice and will certainly come in handy when I need to pack the wheel away for a bit (although I can't even imagine I'd want to do that in the near or distant future!)

Everything came fully assembled, so it was a quick set-up after reading through the simple and thorough instructions.  The actual spinning, on the other hand, was not quite as easy.  In fact, it was really freaking hard.  I'm sort of used to picking things up right away and I kind of had a bit of an idea in my head that spinning would come easy to me.  Think again.


After some difficulty and much cursing (and some almost crying), I was finally able to make something that resembled yarn.  But it was way overspun (I think).

Do you want to see a picture?  Are you sure you won’t laugh?  Positive?  Well, okay, I guess you're trustworthy:

I think I know that I’m doing wrong.  I think I’m treadling too quickly and things just kind of get away from me. I need to remember when I start to get all panicky and can’t keep up with what’s going on with my hands that I really am truly in control and just have to stop moving my feet to make it stop!

I really don’t have any scrap roving I could use to practice, so I’m using this really pretty red BFL (seen here waiting to be pre-drafted).  

I’m sure I’ll be able to make something out of the yarn once I’m finished, or maybe I’ll just hold on to it and put it someplace where I can look at it in the future and laugh at myself see how far I’ve come.

I’m excited to keep trying and getting better.  But I’ll definitely hold off on spinning up my FiberOptic and Blue Moon stuff until I get decent, because they’re way too pretty to waste!

Okay, that’s it for me for this weekend.  Hope your spring forward didn’t mess you all up too much!

New Design - Pennington Mittens!

I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am that this pattern finally gets to be out in the open!  I have had this design pretty much finished since October, but for some reason I just could not seem to find it in me to finish it.

Perhaps my reluctance to get it out there had something to do with the long road I took to finally fall in love with the finished product.  I knit and reknit the sample 3 times before I came to love the final version on the 4th try.

And now I can't get enough of them!

I only wish I had knit the sample in my size, because the small/medium version will definitely not fit my giant hands. :)

Details:

Pattern: Pennington Mittens (KP IDP) (Ravelry link)

Suggested Yarn: Knit Picks Stroll or Stroll Tonal; 1 hank (both sizes)  Shown in Stroll Tonal Golden Glow

Suggested Needles:  US Size 1 (2.25 mm) circular (32” or long enough for Magic Loop), or size necessary to obtain gauge.  Pattern was written for Magic Loop. However, dpns may be substituted if you prefer.

Sizes:  

Women’s Adult Small/Med: 4.25” in Width x 9” in Length from tip to cuff

Women’s Adult Large/XL:4.75” in Width by 10” in Length from tip to cuff

Gauge:  9.5 stitches and 15.5 rows = 1” in Stockinette in the round

Techniques Used:  Cables, Increasing, Toe-Up Construction, Judy’s Magic Cast-On, Bobbles, Magic Loop Method

Notions:  Tapestry needle, stitch markers (optional)


Special thanks as always to my beautiful friend, Trish, for being my model!  And also to Stephannie Tallent for being THE best tech editor ever. This pattern would never have seen the light of day without you. 

Oh, Crap.

Ummmmm. I've done a very bad thing.  (Or, depending on how you look at it, a very good thing.) I might have bought a spinning wheel late last night. And a crapload of roving to go with it.

Yikes.

All you spinners out there, will this be the nail in my fibery coffin?  Will this be the fiber hobby that will completely consume me and never let me out of its clutches, ensuring that I really will grow old and have 500 cats?

Buying a wheel is something that I've been thinking about for a couple years now. I dipped my toes in the water last year when I bought a spindle and I really loved watching the roving turn itself magically into yarn. I knew that while I could continue to play around with the spindle and make some cool stuff with it, I wouldn't be satisfied until I had a wheel in my possession.

But while it's something that I've been thinking about for a long time, I had no idea that all of a sudden last night, after months of reading review after review of the various models that I had narrowed my search down to, that I would actually hit the Buy Now button and have that sweet puppy begin its journey to my home.

What did I get, you ask?  Well, I had narrowed my choices down to the Ashford Joy and the Kromski Fantasia.  Nearly everything I read said that you really should try out different wheels in person, since it's a completely personal thing.  Well, the nearest place that I can do this is really really far away (think 16 hour drive OR a flight/ferry ride), so I had decided that sifting through the mountains of information and opinions and making an informed decision was going to have to be good enough for me.

I'd rather not go into the reasons I chose the wheel I chose (because it's boring and I'm over it), so let's just say I'm ecstatic to welcome a Kromski Fantasia into my fibery world!  The price was right and after watching all the videos on it, I decided it looked easy enough to work that even I could pick it up.

I can't wait!

And after I took the plunge with the wheel, I scoured the web for some roving (because all the roving I already have in my stash needed some company) and came away with some beautiful BFL/silk from FiberOptic and some Polwarth and BFL/Tussah from Blue Moon Fiber Arts.

I'll be sure to show it all off when it comes!

Happy Weekend, everyone!  

What are you all doing to celebrate the increased daylight?  I cleaned out my car!