True Plies: Partying German-style

True Plies: Skacel Artfelt© Roving

On a whim last Thursday, while working the sales floor, I grabbed a Greensleeves spindle and a 50g hank of Skacel's Artfelt© pencil-roving in the color "Party Time" (#901). Why? Because I wanted to see what would happen and also because it would keep me from tears of boredom during slow moments.

I immediately realized what a misjudgment I'd made. First of all, I wasn't entertaining myself anymore - the entire store stopped to stare at me. The staff even were mesmerized by the pretty whirling wooden thing that was making yarn. Second, I got about a dozen requests to teach an Intro to Spindling course (for knitters), which has been approved by our Fearless Leader, so look for it on the Class Schedule when everything is arranged.

Anyway, back to the pretty-pretty wool. I had also made the mistake of not considering the mesmerizing qualities of variegated roving. I didn't want to stop spindling because I wanted to see what color would come next. Even worse, my coworkers and our patrons were egging me on - so I spent half the day wandering around the floor trying to help people and spin yarn at the same time.

Since The Blogger was madly in love with the yarn I was making, I promised to give it to her if she'd write a True Plies column on knitting with it. This then sparked a discussion on how it should be plied, whether it needed to be plied?, or what it should be plied with. In the end, we decided that I would ply the thick 'n thin singles with Habu's Silk Wrapped Stainless Steel thread in dark blue. It would strengthen the yarn and also give it some sparkle:

(Bling Bling, baby)

By the end of the night (our Sip 'n Stitchers also piled on the peer pressure to finish the yarn), it had all been plied. The next day, The Blogger and I wound it into a skein and set the twist (the process of 'finishing' the yarn by soaking it in water and hanging it to dry):

After it had dried, we pulled out our very handy yarn weight tool to determine the WPI (wraps per inch) and approximate gauge. Shown below is the finished skein and the tool (Brass Yarn Gauge):


Un-scrunched, the yarn averaged 12 WPI, making it a worsted weight. I also checked the yardage of the skein the old-fashioned way - counting the number of strands in the skein, measuring the skein's length...


... and doing some multiplication. All told, the skein had about 146 yards from 50g of wool. Not too bad.

In the end I almost regretted giving away the yarn, but stood fast. It was lots of fun to spin and I really enjoyed playing with the roving. I'd definitely recommend it for any level of spinner. It'd be perfect for beginners who struggle with drafting or for really experienced spinners who want to experiment with designer yarns. Next time, I want to try the color "Fall in Vermont" (#921). It'd look really spectacular plied with Habu Textiles' Wool/ Stainless Steel in Terra Cotta, don't you think?

(Unfortunately, we do not have Skacel Artfelt © roving available for purchase online. But if you would like to send us an email, we'll do our best to help you!)

The Blogger in the wild...

To make up for our lack of True Plies these last two weeks (honestly, The Blogger and I are working on it!), I managed to catch The Blogger on camera while she was updating the store's window displays. This season's theme features a variety of hand- and needle-felted projects, including the posies being placed en habitat by The Blogger:

Of course, as we learned in Anth 101, one cannot observe without affecting that which one is observing:

In any case, I thought the world would like to see The Blogger in her natural habitat.

No Mean Feet tomorrow night!

Just a little reminder to all our lovely PDX-area readers: No Mean Feet will be turning heels together tomorrow night! 6 - 8 pm at the store; tea, coffee and snacks will be provided. No fee or purchase necessary - just an enthusiasm for socks!

(Please note: this is NOT a class, and no instruction will be provided - though I'm sure everyone will be willing to help one another :D)

No Rest for the Weary...

..or is it the wicked?

My great-grandmother, "Grand Mutter", had a nasty habit of mumbling idioms and now I can always remember the spirit of this scary bad-ass east Texas woman every time I think of one.
Remember "Stupid is as stupid does"? How about "Whistling girls and crowing hens always come to some bad end"? Betcha never heard "Beatcha like my ugly red-headed step child" or "Snatch ya ball-headed".
Yeah, that was Grand Mutter and boy was she the life of the party.
The trouble is because I hear them so infrequently nowadays, they've managed to swim around in my head and copulate and I'm left befuddled with: "Idle hands are the Devil's..." What?
It's particularly trying on my sanity because they always seem to come to mind during bouts of insomnia.

1 am:
Idle hands are the Devil's campground.
No don't do this. Go to sleep. Try some chamomile.

1:40 am:
Idle hands are the Devil's toolbox.
Stop it. Sleep already crazy person. Try some music. Maybe jazz.

1:52 am:
Chet Baker or Leonard Cohen not Charlie Parker. Sleep making music you moron!
Don't call us a moron.
We can call us a moron if we want. Whatcha gonna do about it?
Idle hands are the Devil's FourRunner... or is it Fore Runner?
Fine. We are goin' for the big guns now: rooibos with the valerian root paired with the dulcet tones of Francoise Hardy and Claudine Longet. That'll fix it.

3:29 am:
Idle hands are the Devil's...
Blog! Work on the blog and how we can't sleep and...
Do you want people to think we're meshuge?
We're sure they've figured it out all ready.
You know, we could always just use the Google-fu and look it...
No! we'll remember all on our own, or we'll forget about it.

4:07 am:
Idle hands are the Devil's playstation.
It's not playstation... Playstation. Hmm, solitaire or maybe Brick Breaker?
Idle hands are the Devil's Brick Breaker?
No idiot. Maybe we should play a video game.
Don't call us idiot. Play Brick Breaker.
No, if we are going to play something it should be yarn. Still have that True Plies experience to blog about.

(Habu's Fique. McLovin' it!)


















We could also tease those that read the blog with the new new new news of the "Catherine Lowe event spectacular"
Yeah she's cool but she totally deserves her own post...
...devoid of the Blogger's sleepless mad rantings. Yeah, we're right.
There's always the lace design work for the spring Gratis Knits to work on. Oooh!


We can totally bust out the Swiss Mountain lovely-goodness and the beads and play yarn à la Ruth Sørenson.












It's reeaallly late. We should just try to get some rest.

4:49 am:
Idle hands...
Fine we'll look it up.

The find

Well it could be anything. Most importantly though, we don't care anymore. So there. Nanner, nanner, nanner. Sleep is ours at last!
Is it wicked or weary?
Huh?
No rest for the...

Kill me.

A Public Apology to Dory K.

I am so happy, happy, ridiculously happy!
Ecstatic.
One could even say I'm chirpy.
It doesn't matter that there is a crap load (industry technical term) of yarn in my in box to photograph and add to the website:













And more waiting in the wings:











Doesn't matter that the store windows need changing, the store displays aren't tidy, and my desk looks like this:












And the new project* I started? It looks like this:

Or that my day was replete with curtailing drama, answering pattern questions, and researching whether mercerized cotton is considered organic (turns out it's not and our new yarn is a truly organic yarn).

My delight is an overfilling fountain of three fold happy-making-ness:

A number 1: I'm off of my self imposed Ravelry ban.

I made the adult decision in late October to have no access with the site because my habit... eh, addiction... uhm, time spent on the site was taking over other things in my life. Important things. Not things like earning a living, laundry, or grocery shopping, but things like eating and bathing.
Here's a tip lads and lassies: If you choose Ravelry over bathing you need to set down the virtual crack pipe, so to speak and get yourself to a support group. Happily, I think they have one of those on Ravelry.

B number 2: The newsletter is out...
...and it's purdy. I wanted to add this photo but there wasn't any more room and the photo of Momoe (pronounced moh-moh-ā) holding a bowl won out.

My own personal level of hell, which I've always imagined was sandwiched somewhere around the chamber of pounding and the chamber of scales, was called (insert ominous music) the chamber of newsletters. When I took over this position from my predecessor, K-Dawg, I thought her drinking was a tad excessive. Now I know, it wasn't enough.
Not only did the newsletter arrive to close to six-thousand recipients in just two minutes (versus 3 or more days), our new newsletter service sent out the correct and current newsletter.
Gone is the email filled with angry "Unsubscribes", "Why'dya send me my newsletter so lates", and whatnot. I felt so bad for each unhappy customer every month because I could never anticipate where the roulette wheel of chaos would land.
Gone was that shrieking harpy (me) cursing a blue streak so scandalous dock workers and carny-folk would blush.
Gone are the tears: mine and my coworker's.
Gone was the heavy drinking, and today my liver isn't distended and hard like twice cooked chuck. Lemme tell you it's not good the store is close to Betty Ford's and Jake's which coincidently is affectionately called "Conference Room B".

Today I feel confident that I can truthfully apologize in this public forum to Dory (they know who they are) for receiving a newsletter each month that was unwanted. Our old tool just loved Dory. I'd remove the address yet the tool would send it off anyway. One would be so lucky to have a spouse as committed and in love as that tool was to Dory. But it was a love that was taboo.

C number 3: I've forgotten what it was.

Maybe my bliss was only two-fold and B number 2 was so awesome and almighty, it seemed like it was two things.
Yeah, I think that was it.

would blush. My co-workers are especially grateful because too often my wrath was misdirected to one of them.*P.S. Don't mention this little diversion to my Secret Gay Husband. He won't understand that at this time I just can't take another minute with his more than thrice-knitted socks, even if I've completed the heel turn. Again.