The Decorator Crab

Drive-by blogging

So little time right now.  So. Little. Time.  Trying to finish a Ph.D. in science and make the transition into future projects that will keep the research momentum going is completely exhausting. And completely inconducive to blogging, and crafting in general, actually.  I give you all that I've got.

18 blocks. 

Also, remember this? 

This UFO has been languishing in the pile since August, but the urge to finish it has struck. It must be the seeming endlessness of the hexagon blanket that is giving me the craving to finish something.  If only I can find the time...

Multitasking is the new black

Not much progress on this:
because I have been doing this:

this:

and this:


Sorry for the dark photos - it's been wet and rainy around here lately (and I love it!).

The hex blanket has "grown" to 13 hexagons. I have missed working on it, despite how much fun I've been having with the drop spindle.

I have produced my first three mini-skeins of yarn! They are far from perfect, but I am learning and getting better with every hour at the spindle. Our instructor left us with two more drop spindles and nine samples of various fibers.  They include silk, soy silk, cashmere, alpaca, corridale, merino/silk blend, merino/tencel blend, Rambouillet/angora blend, and Merino a la Margaret Stove.  That ought to keep me busy!

On Saturday I painted and organized the craft room.  Do not adjust your monitor - I did use a bright color! My craft room is decorated with Mexican Folk Art (Dia de los Muertos, Oaxacan figurines, nichos, etc.), so I took license to get a little Fiesta with the color.  I'm sure it's not to all of your tastes, but I think it's really fun and it makes me smile when I go in there.  I still need to hang my peg board and my storage box, but I'm almost finished with the room.  I'll consider it "Mission Accomplished."

My husband is home after being out of town for a week, so I am going to leave it at that.  More soon.

Finding my place.

I want to share a little story about two community yarn shops and how I feel about them.  There was a shop close to our house in Washington, and I shopped there on and off for two-and-a-half years. I also took a class on Fair Isle there.  The ladies who owned and operated the shop were very nice, but none of them ever learned my name.  I never felt that I was a part of the community there, that I would be missed if I stopped coming in. Now don't get me wrong - I wouldn't say that the place was cliquish or cold; they probably just had a lot of people coming in and out, and I was just one of the masses.  I often thought that it would be worth it to drive further into Seattle to find a shop that seemed to "fit me" better.  And then we moved.

Fast forward to today, in Corvallis, Oregon. There is one yarn shop in town, and soon after we moved I went to the shop to pick up some yarn. The owner was very friendly, and she invited me to an upcoming knit night.  I went, and the small shop was overflowing with knitters and crocheters. I was warmly welcomed and had a great time.  Conversation drifted toward spinning, and I mentioned a desire to learn.  As luck would have it, a class was coming up at the shop on learning how to spin with a drop spindle.  A full week later I called the shop to sign up for the class.  While I was on the phone the owner saw my name being written down on the class list and I heard her say, "Oh, Amanda signed up!  That's great!"  *HUZZAH!!*  That's what I'm talking about!  That's the intangible sense of community that had escaped me for so long in Washington.  Imagine my glee - I think I've found my place!

And now, on to the juicy bits.  As you can guess from the above, I finally gave in to my longstanding urge to learn to spin. For about the last year or so I've been having secret thoughts about how amazing it would be to learn to spin my own yarn. But, I always talked myself out of it.  "No. No no.  I've only been knitting for a couple of years, and I really should concentrate on improving my skills before picking up a new hobby. And besides, I already have all of that yarn in the stash..."  But I have also been inspired by other budding spinners, and I've been secretly wishing that I too could learn.  And now, finally, I've taken the plunge and attended my first spinning class!  My singles are thick and thin and horrifying, but I am so proud!  I have made yarn out of sheep fiber!  The idea of being able to go from fiber to sweater is so amazing and exciting, and I just can't wait to learn more. 

Our instructor gave us three kinds of wool to practice with, along with a top whorl drop spindle made from a wooden dowel and two CDs.  Neat!  The fiber on the  left is what is on the first "bobbin," and of course I completely forget what it is.  The fiber on the right has shorter fibers, so it should be a little different to spin than the first batch.  I am saving the purple pencil roving for dessert, which I have to earn by spinning all of the other stuff first.  I almost bought some fiber from Blue Moon yesterday, but I decided that I have to earn that, too, by at least finishing my spinning class and learning how to ply.  But I have to tell y'all, even though it's only a few days into it, I'm having the absolute best time spinning (such as it is).  And I'd like to ask, Lord, please keep me from the wheels until after I finish my degree...

Cutest. Bag. Ever!

OMFG.  I must make it - now!  I get an email every day from Interweave's Knitting Daily (link), and this bag was featured yesterday.  The pattern is by Pam Allen from Interweave's Bag Style, but is available as a free download if you are a subscriber to Knitting Daily.  The project is up on Ravelry, but it looks like no one is working on it yet.  Time to dig through the stash to see if I have anything that will work!

Off topic - dogs on video

This is for Minnie, who posted a very cute video of one of her dogs recently.  I shot this video of our Chihuahua, Johnny, at Cannon Beach a couple of weekends ago.  Johnny has bad knees and walks a little funny, but you can see that he doesn't let it slow him down.  Sorry for the annoying voice-over.  I always forget that my camera records sound, too - Doh!

In which she peeks her head out from behind the boxes

Greetings all, from the glorious state of Oregon!  We are still settling into the new house, but the dust has cleared and I have a few moments to get back to the ol' blog.  Anyone still out there?!

Blog-worthy creative progress is minimal, which is another reason that I haven't been back to the blog since we've been here.

The Hexagon Blanket has an embarrassing, measly 8 (8!!) blocks so far.  I started and then abandoned the first set of blocks, so my actual progress doesn't fairly reflect the amount of time that I've put into the blanket. So it goes here at Chez Crabby!!  Onward!

In between crocheting hexagons, I was drawn back to the needles by a simple project with gorgeous yarn - the Noro Scarf.  I found some Silk Garden Lite while we were at the coast last weekend, and I cast on that same night.  I'm doing seed stitch instead of K1P1 ribbing, and I love how the texture and colors are coming together.  The striping isn't as crisp as in Jared's version, but I'm digging it just the same.  I grabbed the last three balls of SGL that the store had, and will likely need a fourth ball.  I'll cross that bridge...yadayada.

And that's all the progress that I have to show for a month of absence. It's a sad state of affairs indeed. Sorry friends - my creative mojo sucks lately.   I'll post some photos of the new house once we get some decent color on the walls and the rest of the furniture arrives (squee!!). 

Johnny says, "I like sitting in the sun at the front door! Also, is that door really purple?"  Yes. Yes it is. Welcome home, pup.

A little short on content

Well.  All of the yarn is here, and I think that I have a final color palette for the blanket.  Many thanks to everyone who left comments on the last post!! 

The major changes in the organization of the color groups are:

1. Instead of the same three "dark brown" skeins, I now have three different dark browns.

2. The "tans" got a bit lighter, and I removed a color that I really didn't like.

3. I added a very light purple, and removed the darkest one.

4. I added a fun, aqua-green, and removed a dark green.

5. I added a bright blue, and removed a navy blue.

I was really motivated to lighten up the color palette a little bit. I got some good advice about not getting too many dark colors next to each other, so I'll be careful about that as I continue to make hexagons. I still haven't decided about the yellow - I may throw it in a few times just for fun.  Or maybe not.

I've made six hexagons so far, but I used some of the colors that I've now eliminated.  I also bought a 3.5mm hook that I am going to switch to, so I'll have to start over.  Sad, but for the best in the long run.

Here are the colors all together:

Here are the colors that didn't make the final cut:

It's funny how it all worked out.  I really like some colors that I ultimately rejected, and I dislike some of the colors that are still included.  I'm still an apprehensive color mixer, but I'm trying to go with the flow on this one and have some fun. 

We are moving from Washington to Oregon next Tuesday, so my spare time will be limited in the next couple of weeks.  I apologize in advance for what will likely be some spotty posting and lack of visible progress.  Rest assured though - I am super stoked on this project and will be highly motivated to get to it as often as I can!  Just bear with me for a little while...

Finally, it begins.

I literally shed a few tears when the UPS van drove by the house without stopping again yesterday.  It was just icing on the cake after a rough couple of days in and out of the dentist's chair. But, good news today!  The package from The-Yarnshop-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named arrived from Massa-friggin-chusetts!  YESYESYES!!  I actually ordered just a few more balls from Jimmy Beans Wool yesterday, since I had a coupon for free shipping and the Jaeger Matchmaker & Baby Merino DK are now down to $3.50/ball.  Two brown/tans, a green, a blue, and another "white/creme" are coming.  Don't know if they will make it into the mix, but the "rejects" will be used for something eventually. 

Anyway...now I have a decision to make and I wanted a little feedback from this here blog (that means you, too, lurkers!).  I have two options for my "white/creme" bunch, and the question is:

To Yellow, or Not To Yellow?  We have:

OR

The shade of yellow is not my favorite, and I worry that the color scheme will totally devolve into ROYGBIV if I include yellow.  Is it out of place, or is it my color inhibition (*wink* to Julia!) getting in the way??

The cakes of yarn are the Rowan Pure Wool DK, and though I haven't swatched with it yet, it does feel a tiny bit softer than the Matchmaker.  I'll give you the full report once I actually crochet with it.

So, that's about it.  I put up photos of the individual color groups here.  Feedback on the color groups is always appreciated (ie. ditch that one, find another one, etc.)! 

Enjoy the weekend all.  We will be doing a lot of packing for the upcoming move here at Chez Crabby. Oh joy!

*Sigh*

I swear, I am having the worst kind of luck with shipping lately!  It is so frustrating, and makes for very boring blog material.  I swear - I'm not usually such a pathetic whiner in real life (or am I?!).

Maybe my experience lately is made more acute by the strong contrasts in the two companies that I've ordered yarn from for the Hexagon Blanket. I started out at Jimmy Beans Wool, where I ordered something like 18 balls of Jaeger Matchmaker. I placed the order on a Tuesday, mid-morning.  In the afternoon I got a call from a very nice lady at JBW (regretfully don't remember her name) to let me know that one of the colors that I wanted was out of stock.  While she had me on the phone, she wandered around the shop (or inventory, or whatever) searching for substitute yarns and colors. As she made suggestions, I was on their web site checking out what she was coming up with.  We agreed to try a lime-green shade of Rowan Wool Cotton, which she gave me at no extra cost (it was twice as much as the Jaeger).  She shipped out the box THAT DAY, and it arrived on my doorstep on Thursday.  Fantastic service!  Free shipping, and it was super-fast!  Even their regular shipping charge is only $4!  While some of the colors were not what I expected, and the Wool Cotton isn't going to work out, I accept that risk as a part of ordering yarn online.  There is no substitute for going to the shop and picking it out in person. Anyway, Jimmy Beans Wool = Fantastico!

Since I needed a few more colors and had thoroughly picked over the Jimmy Beans site, I Googled for the Matchmaker and for Rowan Pure Wool DK, which is another good yarn for the project.  I landed at The Knitting Garden, where the Matchmaker was on sale (score!) and the Pure Wool was not (fine - I'll still take it).  I placed an order for 3 balls of Matchmaker and 5 balls of Pure Wool on Monday (but admittedly after hours on the east coast).  I expected to get a notice about the shipment in the next day or two, since it says on the KG home page that "All in stock merchandise shipped within 24 - 48hrs."  On MONDAY (that's four business days later, and all weekend spent wondering) I got an email from The Knitting Garden informing me that two of the three balls of Matchmaker were out of stock, but that the order had shipped via UPS on Friday.  No phone call about possible substitutes. No tracking number for the shipment. I emailed back and courteously asked about a tracking number (since the package was coming all the way from Massachusetts and I wanted to stalk it across the country).  I still haven't heard back, so I guess that the answer is "No tracking number for you!"  I keep hoping that the UPS man will drop off the package, but he rolled on by the house today without so much as letting off of the gas pedal.  Hmphf.  [BTW - one of the colors (865) is still available on the web site - go order it just for fun and tell me what happens!].

Maybe I have become too spoiled by some online companies, but there are certain things that I expect from any good Internet-based company:

1. Tracking information for shipments, whether they are UPS, FedEx, USPS, or ShipYourShit.com.  I want to know where my yarn is, and I want to know NOW.

2. I'd really like to be able to log into my account on the company's web page, and track the status of my order.  Has it shipped?  How many balls did I order again?  After I placed my order at KG and waited so many days to hear back, I was really wondering WTF?!

3. If something is out of stock, I expect an email or phone call to see if I would like to purchase something else. That is why I filled in my phone number on the ordering page, right?  Give me an option, any option, when my order won't be fulfilled as expected. What if my order had been useless without those two balls of yarn?  Since KG informed me of the situation AFTER the order had shipped, I couldn't have done anything except ship it back after the fact, probably at my own expense.  Again, WTF?!

Now, I'm not trying to rip the Knitting Garden a new one or anything, but they've got some serious room for improvement.  Who wants to wait almost two weeks for yarn?!  The stuff I got on eBay from Newcastle, UK got here faster than that!  I just want to start crocheting, dammit! 

This whole thing is almost enough to get me into my car, into the Seattle traffic, and down to the multitude of local shops where I could have probably found what I needed.  The horror...the horror...  Okay - End Of Rant.

<<deep breaths>>

On the bright side, the book with the pattern did arrive while we were backpacking this weekend!

YAY!  There is one photo of the blanket inside (wish there were more), and the pattern is neatly and concisely laid out on a single page. I was able to figure out the pattern from the diagram without any problems, but thank god for Alex's tutorial on how to join the hexagons.  That will come in very handy when the rest of my yarn finally gets here. 

I crocheted hexagons in each of my hook sizes (sorry for the night-time photo):

It's amazing the difference that one millimeter can make in the size of a hexagon!  That's 5mm on the left, 4mm on the right. The larger hexagon feels loftier and softer to the touch, but the smaller one was less fiddly to work and the stitches are more even. I think I'll go with the 4mm hook. Still not sure about all of the colors, but I will trust Alex when she says that colors that you don't like won't be noticeable among so many that you do like.  Okay - off to work a few more hexas!

Patience is not my virtue

All of my little beauties are lined up and ready to go for the Hexagon Blanket. I look at them several times a day. But, here it is Thursday afternoon, the book hasn't arrived, and we leave for a backpacking trip at the butt-crack of dawn tomorrow.  If the USPS tracking is to be believed, my package hasn't moved in two days. After the arduous trip from Hong Kong, it must be enjoying the California sunshine.  So. Sad.

I'll be taking a light, no-brainer project with me out into the wilderness, Yarn Harlot's One Row Scarf. Even I can remember that pattern, so no fussing around with paper out in the back-country mountains of Washington.

I dug some yarn out of the stash, Debbie Bliss SoHo, and it'll do just fine.  I'm not in love with the yarn, so there won't be any tears if the project gets eaten by bears or wolverines or other beasties. 

It would be nice if there were an effing package waiting for me when we return on Sunday, but we all know the chances of that!  Have a great weekend, all.