Almost August

Summer up here has been mostly warm and even hot at times. While this is very good and a nice change, it is not so good for the knitting. Wool has a tendency to get sticky when it is humid and hot and it is so easy to ignore its calling while it is lingering in its basket. So unfortunately that is what I have been doing all summer, just walking past the sticky pile.

But while the above has been what I have mostly done, there has been little bit of knitting and mostly garter stitch shawlettes. Perfectly mindless and easy but with variegated yarns quite entertaining and the task occupies the idle hands.

Tour de Fleece was finished last weekend and I am sure with all this spinning going on in various places of the earth has been sending spinning fumes far and some of them have landed here. I have been spinning a little bit, very little but for not touching the wheels for months, this feels like a change. I just washed the one skein I have done, about 320 meters of BFL and silk mixture. It was beautifully prepared and a joy to spin. I did start spinning another batch of wool and this time chocolate brown corriedale. Another well prepared 100 grams. I have two wheels and I have been using my old Louet S10, and I just love that wheel. I am not sure if the reason for the deep love is the fact that the miracle of spinning happened on that wheel. This was the equipment that taught me the basics and thus our bond is tight.

Earlier this summer I did some sort of stir in my stash and examined my sock yarns and lace yarns. I have few truly bad colors of few yarns as a result of online shopping where it is sometimes hard to really know what you are getting. I find this very difficult when ordering beige yarns (and I just love beige) and thus I have some sock yarn that is this ugly flesh color. So I threw them into dye pots and managed to turn them into orange, which is a lot better that the previous color and I plan to do this with the rest of the ugly ones too.

Talking about yarns and thinking about the fall (which is hopefully still far away), it will be great to be heading towards the time (not just yet) when all kinds of new yarns come to market. I am really looking forward to some new stuff. Some time ago I bought couple of skeins of DUO, yarn made in Denmark by Design Club, quite lovely Merino, thin, 100 grams has 540 meters and the feel is not the usual Merino, that is very smooth and very soft, this felt little more earthy and natural and a bit robust maybe. Really, a happy surprise. I know there are two more versions of this yarn, with alpaca and with silk and at some point I am going to get those too.

I love pincushions and really every now and then I have to make a new one, and here are two that are quite new. While knitting the other one, it had me thinking about knitting different shapes, and I think I have to experiment a little more.

So again, I could not say wool with you, because with these hot temperatures, even saying wool could make one sweat and choke. If this is not the time to be knitting much, now is a really good time to make plans for the cooler times. Make a list of all those interesting shawls or socks or mittens or hats or sweaters... you get the idea.

Lene