Bad week....

WARNING: Frustrated venting ahead!

Well, it's been a bad week. The worst of which involved a fiasco with my mother-in-law's (and nephew's) birthday party. My poor husband, who's been so distracted with issues at work, forgot that it was his mother's and nephew's birthday this weekend. So we switched gears, spent Saturday finding a gift for his nephew (not a small feat since it involved trying to find a controller for the Nintendo Wii), and spent all of Sunday at his brothers for a birthday party. Also, to make life easier, I "sacrificed" the Forest Canopy Shoulder shawl so that we would have a nice gift for his mother. (a woman who returns everything, I repeat EVERYTHING, we give her. Or, I should qualify, she won't return it... she has us return it for her.) And the most frustrating part of it? We were originally supposed to have a relaxing weekend, meaning I'd have plenty of time to play with this:


These are several wonderful samples sent to me by an online friend, Carole. I was so excited when I received them, I wanted to play with them immediately, but it was just too busy of a week. So I was looking forward to the weekend. Obviously, the one in the middle is a sample of some raw Targhee x (one of my favorites!), but the others, clockwise from top, are Lincoln Longwool, Romney (aka Fuzzy :-D), Cotswold, and Jacob.

Plus, she was so sweet, she sent me 3 little chocolates and a wonderful bag of tea with it. Trust me, the way my week was going, it was a WONDERFUL extra treat!

As for the shawl, I wasn't too upset. I had already decided I wanted it larger, and was just trying to figure out who I would give it to. I even didn't mind the fact that I was giving it to someone who doesn't particularly like me. What finally got to me, though, was when she opened it, barely took it out of the bag, said "Oh, how nice, you made it? Thank you." Then shoved it back in the bag w/o even unfolding it. She didn't show it to anyone or even try it on. And when she asked what it was made of (she thought it was cotton, that's how soft this stuff is!) I told her it was wool, some of my handspun. She just looked at me with a scowl and said, well, she usually has issues with wool b/c it's so scratchy, but since it didn't feel scratchy, I guess it'll be ok. That was it. No one else at the party ever saw the damn thing, despite the fact that I was so proud of it. And now it'll probably go into the back of her closet. I even gave her an "out"... if it bothered her, let me know and I'll be happy to make one of cotton or acrylic (God help me if she takes me up on the offer -- with a few exceptions, I hate knitting with both of them!). And all my MIL could do for the rest of the evening was ask me why I don't just use acrylic for all my knitting because "everyone's allergic to wool". And she commented that "I seem to knit alot, doesn't all that yarn cost alot of money?" And I just smiled, told her it isn't so bad, especially since I spin, and turned away...

Sorry to vent, but I guess that's one of the advantages of this thing, I can do that and feel better!

All I can say is -- this weekend really should be a peaceful one. I can't wait to play with the fibers from Carole. It's always so fun to play with new types of fibers. I've never really tried any of them (except targhee, of course, but even those were top, not starting from scratch. I'm curious to see the difference!)


The one thing I did get completed (early in the week while my dd napped) was a bit of dyeing. This was pretty quick since I use a crockpot and it was just a solid. I'm still working on my basic skills, but they are improving. I think my only frustration is that I still have issues getting a more consistant solid. I added salt, but I think maybe I need to add more? Not sure... But this was definitely better than my previous efforts, so I'm getting there! It's just the KnitPicks merino fingering. I think I'll try using this for the new version of the shoulder shawl. I'm just worried it isn't enough since it's only 8 oz. Maybe I'll just try another pattern for now, and save the shoulder shawl for the targhee I'm spinning.




Finally, as I posted previously, I spent most of my time working on this shawl. I really wanted to get it done this week so I could give it to her either yesterday or today. It was really slow going and seemed to be taking an awful lot of fiber. I finally got to 1 lb worth of yarn when I decided enough was enough. Hopefully in blocking it would end up wide enough. I didn't want this thing to be too heavy!

Well, as I cast off, I finally figured out the problem. This thing is now 96" long... hardly shawl length. The picture below is it folded in quarters lengthwise! I even went back and checked my gauge... and I was spot on my gauge. Plus, I decreased the cast on by about 45 stitches b/c their starting length was a little longer than I wanted (I think it was 80"). It must have something to do with the type of yarn... the original was a light Icelandic yarn. I figured it would just make a difference in the weight as long as I was on gauge. Apparently not. Although I have read since then about some others who have had issues with the gauge in this book....



I've decided that this yarn had told me something... it doesn't want to be a shawl, it wants to be an afghan. So now, I'm going to get alot more yarn, call this "strip 1" and take a break. Hopefully, this thing will be finished by the fall! It ought to be interesting, since this is from Cherry Tree Hill Potluck. I'm probably going to get 1 or 2 more sets (depending on what size I want it to be) and stripe it, since they vary signficantly from batch to batch. I'm not bothered by it. It hopefully should end up looking pretty cool! I just can't decide if I should get more of the same "color scheme", or got funky and try some others. If I did that, I'd probably get two, just so it didn't look too strange. We'll see...

That's it for now. I'm making progress on the Perfection Pants (not enough to justify another picture) and I'm going to start on a shawl for the blue yarn. But I still need to decide what to do with it.