I have a subscription via Audible for the daily NPR news program, All Things Considered. A few days ago, they had a marvelous story about a ramen shop in Tokyo, detailing how the simple act of eating a bowl of their legendary pork noodles will help you to know yourself.

It was a delightful article. I hope you will listen to it. Click here to access the story.

I woke up a few days ago to find a strange piece of hanging art in the bathroom.

However, I did put it there myself, so I wasn’t too surprised to find it! I used this setup to dry some newly spun yarn under tension. You’re looking at ~12 g of the finest laceweight I can muster. I don’t know the yards per pound (McMorran balance is broken!), but the yarn is ~40 wraps per inch. The beige things are weights from a knitting machine that I don’t use.

This yarn is for the wedding veil/shawl currently under construction. I didn’t block the first batch of yarn, and I’m hoping that it won’t make a noticeable difference in the final piece. If it does, I’m sure it’ll be easy to mask. (I could just fold that part and have it be the inside of the shawl, or gather it up to a hairpiece if it goes on my head!)

I’ve finished the lower border. Although the picture below only shows 40 “teeth,” the final decision is to make it with 42 teeth on the upper/lower borders, and 43 teeth on the sides. It’s going to be huge! It made the math simpler to do it this way, so even if it’s a heckuva lot of knitting, I feel reasonably confident that it will come out the way I envision it.

I’ve also been reassuring myself that this is simply a fun project and to not take it so seriously. It will be wonderful if it’s done in time for the wedding (Oct 2!), but if it’s not, then I’ll be just as good without it. On average, it will take me about an hour to do three rows (376 st/row). There are 688 rows before I turn the corner and begin the upper border. If I’m consistent and keep plugging away, it will be done with plenty of time to spare. (I’ve already completed 14 rows!)

The bulk of this knitting occurs while I walk on the NordicTrack. The way I figure it, there are two benefits – the more I knit, the faster I’ll finish the veil/shawl, and the more weight I will lose! Hee hee.

I like machine knitting because it gives the illusion that the machine knitter is a productive knitter. The illusion has a strong hold over me until I actually attempt another machined sweater, and I realize machine knitting is fraught with as many potential pitfalls as handknitting. (They may be totally different pitfalls, but they slow you down all the same.)

Matt is a good candidate for machine knit sweaters, particularly because he is a big guy.

See how big?

(We have our hands folded like that because we’re standing outside of a giant church.)

Some years ago, I bought an enormous amount of KFI Intermezzo cotton yarn (Aran weight) when it was discontinued and selling for about $3 per 100 g hank. Bargain hunting be damned; I now have a good guess as to why the production of this yarn was halted. In simple terms, the yarn sucks. The primary problem is how the yarn is not properly balanced. When knitted in stockinette (the stitch that machine knitting does best), the fabric will bias from rectangles into parallelograms. That is not cool.

As I was able to press the gauge swatch into a reasonably square-cornered rectangle, I proceeded to knit the front, back, and sleeves. I handknit the ribbing onto each piece, noting that I had to stop every 50 stitches to unwind the overtwisted yarn. Grrr… Next, I machine washed the pieces to shrink them before seaming. During the wash, the loose ends completely twisted around each other into a tangled mess than I have yet to separate. You are looking at two sleeves and the front of the sweater, all snarled into one tight entity. (To date, I’ve only been able to extricate the back of the sweater.)

Grr…

I also washed a small, carfully tied hank to have enough preshrunk yarn for seaming. The crazy amount of twist that developed when the yarn was allowed to relax in the water shows just how poorly this yarn was balanced during the mill spinning.

Grr…

I hate when a quickie project turns into a mess. Lesson learned – don’t buy yarn just because it looks nice and is reasonably priced.

I finished my first socks of the year! They are made, as previously noted, from Patons Kroy. Surprisingly, I didn’t run into a single knot the entire way! Yay! Hopefully, this means the quality control is going up at the mill.

Of course, I immediately cast on for the next pair. I’ve knit every day on the bus, and this sock is rapidly growing. (I started it on Monday, I think.)

On a completely different topic, Matt and I bought a lot of Girl Scout cookies over the weekend. I had several friends tell me that there was a lookalike Asian girl on the peanut butter cookie box, but I’d never seen them for sale before. What do you think? (I’m the one on the right.) Is it another case of “All Asians look the same”?

I received my Woolee Winder today! My idea is to use it primarily for plying, but I will also likely use it for bulky singles. I tend to only mind changing hooks when it has to be done frequently.

Installed on the Schacht

It works just as advertised, as far as I can tell. I’d prepared several piles of singles in the last week in anticipation of the winder. Tonight, I plied ~50 grams of Polwarth (light grey) and ~30 grams of Merino/Corriedale (dark brown).

Whee! New yarn!

On a completely different topic, my mom wrote me a brief thank you note for the knitted Christmas gifts. Isn’t it nice?

Lastly, Matt’s father left the hospital last night. His recovery is progressing as expected, and we’re all very glad.

Yesterday, one of Matt’s co-workers came by with his family (sans one daughter who was working) to learn how to spin! I gave them small balls of hand combed Corriedale top. We started by thigh spinning and moved on to drop spindles. They really learned quickly, I was surprised and pleased.

Daughter Melena and mother Gloria

They also did some brief spinning on the wheel, which went as well as could be expected from people who had been spinning for about a half hour. Still, it was usable yarn, soft and lofty. I plied it for them, and Melena was especially pleased with the novelty texture of her yarn. When they were wrapping up their visit, we invaded my stash and came up with probably 8 oz of various bits of chinchilla, wool, alpaca, silk, angora, opossum, and whatever else seemed interesting. I also gave them one of my heavier spindles to take home. I printed out the free pamphlets at Interweave.com (basic intro on how to spin, how to make a CD spindle, and so forth), as well as info from the Lollipops web page that taught me how to spin yarn. Lastly, I included info on how to make an Andean plying bracelet.

Hopefully, Melena (and Gloria, too, if she has time!) will really enjoy playing with the various fibers, even if the spindle I gave her was probably a bit too heavy for some of it. She was enraptured by how soft the fibers were and kept telling me over and over how much fun she was having, how she thought she could spin all day and not get tired of it. (Sound familiar, anyone?)

SpindleRose (who promises an update to her blog is in the making!) invited me over to her home for a mini spin-in this afternoon. Claudia was also able to join us, and we had a delightful afternoon. Rosemary prepared a lentil dish (dal) and aromatic rice for lunch, which was yummy.

We also ate chocolatey items!

I haven’t been doing a lot of spinning lately, and I certainly haven’t touched my Schacht wheel since the Drudik wheel arrived in October. It took me a while to find even where I had stashed the flyer and speed whorls, but all was recovered in time.

I managed to add about 50 g of Leah and her ewe.

Thanks to the people who have commented recently, both on Matt’s dad and my PW sweater. Matt’s dad is doing all right (on morphine right now, but sounding strong and optimistic on the phone this AM), we are expecting that he will do just fine. As far as the sweater goes, I wrote to Ann and Eugene B. of Philosopher’s Wool, and they asked permission to post my picture on their web page of items knitted by customers. That will be very cool if they put me up! I definitely intend to do another Fair Isle sweater, but probably not as thick a garment next time. I do like the PW “Stars” design, but I think I might try it using jumperweight wool! Someday, someday…

Lastly, Charlie and James would like to wish you a happy new year!

Just a brief note to ask for your good thoughts and prayers. Matt's father unexpectedly underwent a quadruple bypass heart operation this afternoon. The surgery went well, and the physicians said we could expect a normal recovery (~5 wks). We would appreciate any good vibes and healing notions!