The Road To Unemployment

You guys, I feel a little bit like I went through some sort of time machine last week, only it wasn't the kind you see in movies where you're instantly transported to a different decade.  No, this one was a bit more trouble and took the form of four airports, three airplanes, and two standby flights and I'm pretty sure I was still in 2012 when I landed, but man, I was in a different place for sure.

The place, if you're interested, was Great Falls, Montana.  If you want to get there, it seems you have to spend half a day trying to catch flights to numerous cities around the country before landing within this hidden gem of a city.  Self-described as "a small prairie town," Great Falls is known for it's less-than-impressive waterfalls (think feet tall, not meters or stories) and for being the location of one of the first filmed UFO sightings in the United States.  So I suppose I should have been prepared for what I was getting myself into.

But I was still blindsided by the abundance of 1950s hairstyles, outdated gender roles, and well... the mermaids.

You see, all my life I have been told that mermaids were not real.  That they were simply a mythical creature dreamed up by sailors who had spent too long at sea away from women and looked upon manatees with too much lust in their eyes.  But no, dear readers, I am here to tell you that mermaids are real, and Great Falls has them.  Not only does Great Falls have them, but they have kindly put them on display at the Sip 'n' Dip Lounge for all the world to see.

Yep, right there behind the bar so that I could order my drinks and watch these wonders of the sea at the same time.  One of them even waved at me.  (As an aside, I was in Montana to audition for a symphony there - I didn't get the job - and this was the hotel that they recommended I stay in.  It would appear that this town prides itself on these little mermaids.)

I always thought that mermaids and their sisters of the sea, the Sirens, would have little effect on me as a gay man, but I have to admit... I couldn't tear my eyes away.  Now, I don't think I was experiencing the same draw that the group of boys in the corner taping dollars to the glass were experiencing, but I was nonetheless intrigued - at least until my beer was gone.  (The beer was really only a prop for me to use so I had an excuse to sit there and take pictures.  I felt like ten kinds of creepy.)  Besides, I had more important places to go, like the yarn shop.

It didn't take me long to figure out that Pam's Knit 'n' Stitch (man, Great Falls really loves that abbreviated "and") was just down the road from my hotel (although, truth be told, everything in this town was "just down the road."  It wasn't the largest city in the world...) and I headed off in search of some souvenir yarn.

Along the way I passed NYC, which is what tipped me off that I had somehow stumbled upon some sort of time/space-bending machine.

But it was a quick trip and I was soon in Great Falls again at the entrance of the LYS.  Now, at this point I had already learned what to expect from this town and wasn't holding my breath for anything worth looking at in this shop, but I was once again pleasantly surprised.  We can always count on a yarn shop to put our minds at ease, no matter how far-flung we are, am I right?  The books and magazines were up to date, the yarn selection was great (and current) and the woman working was very pleasant to chat with.  She didn't even miss a step when she saw a man walk into the store.  She simply asked if I was a knitter or a crocheter and then showed me all of the new yarns they had just gotten in.  Now, you guys know my rule about souvenir yarn buying - I can only buy something if I don't have any in my stash, if I can't get it at home, or if I have never seen it before.  With that in mind, I left with a great hand-dyed sock blank made from locally-grown and spun Targhee wool that I'm sure will make a great accessory that is not a pair of socks for me.  (Don't bother googling "Rockem Sockem."  You'll just end up with a bunch of results for boxing robots.)

I continued my Montana-based theme and also picked up a skein of Mountain Colors Winter Lace (50g).  Of course, when I got back to my hotel I realized I didn't really have anywhere to put this yarn in my luggage, but where there's a will, there's a way.

Perfect.

I was planning on showing you guys a finished shawl and some handspun in this post as well, but I think there's plenty here for you to absorb, so I'll pop in sometime in the next couple of days to do that.  And don't forget - if you're looking for mermaids, they're in Montana.

Catching Up

I know I keep saying that I'll post more often, but I continually forget how difficult it is to find the time to sit down with my computer and write something up.  Actually, the hardest part about it is sitting down at school with my computer, which is still the only place I have internet access.  However, armed with a new computer (with a screen that works!) and a wealth of free time now that I am done with school, I have high hopes for a blog revival.  Really, I do.

I thought I would take today to catch you all up on things that have been going on around these parts and then in my next post I'll jump back on the fiber train with some new spinning and knitting.  Yes, knitting.  I'm doing it! And oh, does it feel good to be back with the needles and yarn.

So here I present you with a collection of photos and commentary about what I've been up to these past few months.  Most of these are random photos I've taken on my phone or "borrowed" from Facebook.

With the year coming to a close, my friends and I took some time to hang out before we all move our separate ways.  One night we spent some time gazing at the Supermoon (whenever that was.  Probably forever ago.)

And then once we were all (mostly) done writing out term papers, we took a day off to go hiking at Ohiopyle State Park in southern PA.  It turned out to be a beautiful day.

I also went to a Scottish festival with the Carnegie Mellon bagpipe band.

There was, in fact, an army of pipers.  I now fully understand how intimidating it must have been to have a whole brigade of pipers marching in the front lines of battle.  We marched onto the field in such a way that half the pipers marched on first - right at me - and holy crap it made me want to turn and run the other way.  I totally get it now.

Our band competed in the piping competition and won!

And then the next day I graduated!  I cannot express in words how freaking excited I am about this.  I now officially have a Master's degree and what's more, I'm done with academia forever!  Or at least for the foreseeable future.  I don't currently plan to get a DMA so for the time being, I'm done!  I'm educated and ready to go out into the real world!  19 years in the making and my (formal) education is finally done and man does it feel good.  Naturally I played pipes at the ceremony.

And that about sums up what I've been up to.  Mostly finishing my Master's degree with a bit of fun on the side.  The trip to Carnegie Hall was really fun, my graduate recital went really well, and I also played a concerto on my school's last orchestra concert.  Hopefully I'll be back next week with some more exciting news, but I'm not going to jinx myself, so I'll wait to tell you about that.

I hope you're all enjoying the wonderful holiday weekend!  Take care...     ~Master Peter

Hodgepodge

I believe it might be time for another update.  In short, it goes like this: lots of clarinet, a little spinning, no knitting.

As my final semester in graduate school progresses, each day gets busier than the last.  Days, weeks, and months seem to fly by at the blink of an eye which is entirely disconcerting considering how much I need to get done.  Every week I find myself thinking, "It's Monday again??  That can't be possible!  Didn't Monday just happen?"  And now with the month of April peeking around the corner, things are really going to start to get hectic.

I'll be traveling to New York with my school's orchestra and choir this weekend to perform at Carnegie Hall.  As exciting as that may be, it means that two entire days will be devoted to riding on a bus, which in turn means that there are two whole days that I won't be able to practice.  I know, it sounds insignificant, but like I said  - there's a lot to do.  My graduate recital is only a few weeks away and although I'm sure I can afford to take a day or two away from practicing, I have an irrational fear that if a single day goes by in which I don't practice, I won't be prepared.  This notion, of course, is preposterous considering the fact that I have been learning this music for the past, oh, six months.

If any of you are interested, my recital will be webcast online and I invite you all to tune in and watch!  It should be loads of fun.  The recital is scheduled on Saturday, April 14 at 5pm EST, so mark it in your calendars and then all you have to do is go to destination.cfa.cmu.edu and there will be a link 15 minutes prior to the starting time that you can click on.  Easy peasy!  I'll try to post another reminder in a few weeks if any of you are interested in watching.

So that's what's going on with the clarinet, but I know most of you are here to read about things fiber-related.  It just so happens that I do have a few things to show you, and more waiting in the wings!  No knitting, mind you, but my spinning wheel and I continue to become better acquainted.

I finally finished spinning up those Cupcake Fiber Company batts from Joan.  I started them eons ago and, well...  You know how if you're knitting on a project, but then you put it down for, say, four months and then pick it up again and finish it only to discover that your gauge was completely different for the second half and it doesn't really resemble the beginning at all?  That's what happened with my spinning.  Only, I sort of knew it was happening and didn't do anything to fix it.  When I spun the first batt, I spun it using worsted techniques, which really just means that I was producing a relatively dense, smooth single that didn't have a lot of loft or bounce to it.  The trouble is that I don't particularly care for that type of spinning.  To my impatient self it takes too long and that type of spinning doesn't necessarily produce the bouncy, airy, warm yarns that I love.  Also, I find that if I spin that way for longer than, say, half an hour, my eyes get really tired and I spend the rest of the day with a headache.  (Some will suggest spinning with better lighting.  Believe me, I have tried.)  This is all to say that by the end of the sixth and final batt, I was spinning in a way that didn't even begin to resemble what I started out doing.

Do you see how the bobbin on the left is much smoother and the individual strands are more defined?  That was my first bobbin.  The one on the right is much loftier and has much more of a halo to it, which gives it that softer look.  "Oh well," I said, and plied up my yarn to see what would happen.  I spun six one-ounce bobbins, so I plied together bobbins 1,3, and 5 and then 2, 4, and 6 to make two skeins of 3-ply yarn.

Really they're not bad considering my complete disregard for consistency in this project, but you can tell that the skein on the left is a bit loftier than the one on the right (on the left is skein 2,4,6.)  At any rate, I do love the finished result and can't wait to get my hands on some more of those batts.  And this time I know how I like to spin them up.  These two skeins total about 870yds.

Once that yarn was off the bobbins I started spinning up some fiber that I picked up at my LYS.  The fiber was from Frabjous Fibers and was a combination of 65% merino and 35% sparkle in the Redwood Forest colorway.  (I put "sparkle" in italics because that's how I say it - with a bit of flair.)

I have to say, this was a pleasure to spin up.  I didn't really have any plans for it other than trying to get a slightly larger yarn.  I split the fiber in half and then just spun up two bobbins and plied them together.  Super quick and super fun.

The singles weren't incredibly consistent, but that doesn't bother me even a teensy bit.  The finished yarn is soft, squishy, and - in the right light - quite shiny as well.  With 230 yards it's perfect for making some whimsical little accessory, but for now it sits in waiting.

I always find myself looking for my next spinning project as soon as I finish the last one (much as I used to do with knitting.  ::sigh::) and the next project on the wheel was some hand-dyed Hampshire roving from Dan at Gnomespun that I got as part of his Mythic Fibers Club.  For this club he would take a mythical being and create a colorway that he thought would be represent that character.  The braid I chose to spin up first is based on The Dagda from Irish mythology.

I just plied up the yarn last night, but haven't wound it off the bobbin yet.  Once again I split the fiber in two and spun up two bobbins of singles.  The prep of this fiber lent itself very well to spinning long-draw, which I am beginning to suspect is my preferred way of spinning.  The resulting yarn is going to be seriously bouncy and warm, just you wait.  I'll have to save that for next time, though.

Spin Happy

I continue to be thwarted in my knitting plans by my constant wrist/hand pain (yes, I am seeing a doctor.  Yes, I am taking medication.  Yes, I am wearing braces.), but I seem to be able to do a bit of spinning each night without suffering too much.  It's slow going, but I have been making a bit of progress, whereas the knitting has practically stalled.  In the two weeks since my return, I have accomplished roughly two hours of knitting, which continues to drive me crazy.  I have been self-medicating nightly with tea and chocolate to try to calm myself down, but did you guys know that knitting can't be replaced?  Not even by spinning or reading books about knitting or really reading any books at all.  My list of things I wish to knit gets longer and longer with each passing day as I continue to only be able to plan my projects and not execute them.  I feel like a masochist spending my free time on ravelry looking at projects or digging through my yarn stash looking at a world of possibility.  It's torture, I tell you!

But this post is for spinning, not knitting.  I wasn't able to bring my wonderful wheel with me to Minnesota for my Winter break, but during the last few days I spent in Pittsburgh in December I got back into spinning and was enjoying it immensely.

This summer, perhaps back in May or June, my friend sent me some fiber that she picked up at a Farmer's Market in Connecticut.  The fiber came from Sankow's Beaver Brook Farm and was a blend of natural-colored alpaca and lamb's wool.  It was wonderfully rustic and a joy to spin up.  The fiber was carded, not combed, so I turned my spinning time into a long-draw exercise.  The point was to create a lofty, airy yarn and for the most part I think I succeeded.

I really don't think I could be happier with this yarn.  It is the exact kind of yarn I love to work with and I am overjoyed that I was able to make it myself.  Typically the bobbins on my wheel can hold about 4oz. of fiber.  As you can see, however, I had to split this batch in half because the loft factor was so high that there was no way I could cram the whole shebang onto one bobbin.  I ended up with about 260 yards of a heavy worsted yarn and my mind is full of possibilities for what I can do with it.  (Thanks, Kate!)

Once I got that off the wheel (really, from start to finish, it only took about two days), I threw on a completely different spinning experience in the form of some superwash BFL from Anne at Wooly Wonka Fibers.  I didn't get a picture of the fiber before I started spinning, but it was in the "Wood Duck" colorway and, really, it was right up my alley.  I know I've made my love for birds quite apparent in the past, but you guys - BFL dyed in colors inspired by a bird, which I can then spin up and knit into something unique and wonderful?  I was over-the-top in love and I personally believe that my finished results do not disappoint.

I was actually quite shocked by how it turned out.  Not because I thought it would end up as a lumpy pile of crap, but because I was expecting something thicker with less yardage.  I'm not sure why I thought that's how it would be because I kept checking my singles by letting them twist up on themselves to see what the finished yarn would look like, but still... I was surprised.  What I have now is a 4oz. skein with 780 yards of light fingering-weight yarn.  And it's purty, too.

Overall it's pretty consistent, but clearly each of the plies has, well, character.  They play well together, though.

And lest you think that I have completely forgotten about the wonderful Cupcake batts that I was working on this summer, I have slowly been spinning my way through those as well.  (If by slowly you understand that I mean at a glacial pace.  Not even a fast glacier.  More like a glacier that goes nowhere for months at a time.)  I have spun up three of the six ounces now and have just begun working on the fourth.  I have been very tempted to ply the first three together first, but I can't allow myself to do that.  Instead I'm going to spin them all up, then ply 1, 3, 5 and 2, 4, 6 together (that makes sense in my head, does it make sense in yours, too?).  I think this will help keep things as consistent and mixed up as possible considering the fact that I have been spinning this fiber up over the course of months and months.

 

It's gonna be really nice, though.  I can tell.

Souvenir Yarn

Whenever I travel (even if the destination of such travels is somewhere quite familiar, such as my parents' house) I find myself buying yarn with the excuse that it's "souvenir yarn."  You know what I'm talking about.  I'm willing to bet that the majority of us do this.  You do some research to find out where the closest yarn shops are (knitmap.com helps if you're having trouble, have you used it before?) and off you go to explore.  Some people buy a single skein of beautiful sock yarn while others go for luxury blends of cashmere, silk, qiviut, etc.  I've even heard that some people buy yarn in a color that reminds them of their trip.  My strategy (or rather guideline) for acquiring souvenir yarn is twofold.  This is one of the few times I allow myself to buy yarn "just because" without an idea of what I'm going to use it for.  Usually I'm pretty good about only buying yarn that is needed for a specific project, but when I'm traveling, anything is fair game.  So that's my first rule: You can buy anything you want to just because.  My second rule narrows it down a bit and it is this: I can only buy yarn that I have never used and/or seen before.  It's a helpful little thing to remember when I find myself walking around with an armload of my go-to yarns and it forces (ha!  As if I have to be forced to play with yarn) me to explore new territory.  The blue mittens I'm making that I showed you a few posts back are made with "souvenir yarn" and I love love love it.  (I'll show more about the mittens in my next post.)

While in Minnesota I acquired a decent amount of new yarn, for several reasons.  The first is simply that I know where the yarn shops are.  The second is that my mother knits AND my sister was visiting for the holidays, so a trip to the yarn shop was a must.  The third thing (and this is the trickiest one because you end up with purchases you weren't expecting, even if what you were expecting was the unexpected) is that I had to make several trips to the shops to get non-souvenir yarn - yarn that I needed for specific projects and if I was going to be there already anyway, well... it can't be helped.

So, because I have a brace on my wrist and a band-aid on my finger and therefore can't knit or spin (and consequently don't have much spinning or knitting to show you), I thought some pictures of yarn might tide you over.  (Although it would appear that I have lost my ability to take a decent picture of yarn.)

Hmmmm, now I really wish that I weren't in a practice room writing this post because I don't actually remember any of the details about these yarns.  I'll do the best I can.

Above is some yarn that I picked up at The Yarnery in St. Paul.  This is my Minnesota LYS.  When I'm in Minnesota and you hear me say "I'm going to the yarn shop", this is where I mean.  The yarn is Davidson's "Domy Heather" in the Slate colorway (what a shocker.)  I couldn't resist the heathery, woolen quality of the yarn.  I originally only bought one skein, but then went back for a second when I decided it should become Miralda's Triangular Shawl.  (You see that?  I made a plan.)  It turns out that The Yarnery may very well be the only place to get this yarn.  The company doesn't seem to have an online presence and the only online seller Ravelry has listen is The Yarnery, so I'm glad I picked some up while I was there!

While at The Yarnery, my sister, my mother and I all picked up a ball of Rowan's Kidsilk Haze Stripe.

It's pretty spendy because it has Kaffe Fassett's name on it, but it's also prettier in person and will one day make a nice, airy, stockinette scarf (or infinity cowl.  TBD.)

We then all ventured to a shop in Minneapolis none of us had ever been to, Bella Lana.  They carried a lot of nice yarn, but I ended up walking away with two skeins of Cascade Soft Spun.  It's a familiar company, but I had never seen this yarn before.  (I won't be using the two together, don't worry.)

 

 And lastly, at 3 Kittens I picked up some yarn that is now discontinued - Reynolds Whiskey.  (Yes, Deirdre, I went back and got it.  At 50% off it was hard to resist!)

One of the balls is wound up not because I've started knitting with it already, but because my dog thought it would be fun to roll around in it for a while.  He had draped it all over the main floor before he came to the basement, presumably for help untangling himself.

Well now, it's pouring rain outside and the wind is blowing, so I think it's time for me to head home and put some tea on the stove.  I'll have some knitting and spinning to show you next time, I promise!

A Long Time Waiting

This is a project that I finished several months ago.  I went through a phase this past summer in which I decided to buckle down and finish a bunch of WIPs I had sitting around.  I was becoming a bit overwhelmed by the amount of half-finished projects strewn about my apartment and decided it would be better to finish those up than to start anything new.

I'm not sure why I was even stalled on this project.  I loved knitting the cables and the yarn was wonderful to work with.  Life must have just gotten in the way at some point and forced me to put it aside.

The pattern is Jared Flood's Dryad scarf and I knit it using six skeins of his SHELTER yarn in the Button Jar colorway.  The yarn and pattern were a gift from my mother for my birthday last November (not this past one, but the one before.)

Despite my numerous attempts, the winter we've been having this year has proven too mild for such an excessive extraordinary scarf and I fear that I may have to retire it from my wardrobe until the snow really starts to fly.  I feel torn, as I both love the idea of snuggling up in this swath of rustic wool and also look upon the days of Arctic conditions with a healthy amount of apprehension.

 

I can tell you two things:  The first is that this scarf means business.  I'm convinced that this wool is magical and very likely produces its own warmth, which would explain why I overheat every time I try to convince myself that it's cold enough to wear.

The second is that based on my experience knitting this scarf, I knew as soon as I saw Jared Flood's new fingering-weight yarn, LOFT, I would be a fool to look away.

I do believe there will be a pair of magical hand ovens in my future, just as soon as I finish, well, everything else.  I fear it may be a long time waiting.

Selfish Gifting

It seems that I have done the same thing that I did last year, which is to blog through perhaps the first week of classes and then take a hiatus for the rest of the first semester.  Grad school, it turns out, is a bit of a time suck.  Let's hope that the rest of the school year continues as it did last time, which is to say that I returned to the blog and happily knit along through the second semester.  Of course, this next (and final) semester of grad school may be a bit more time-consuming as I prepare for my comprehensive review, my graduate recital, and start taking auditions for jobs in the real world.

I must thank each and every one of you for your comments, emails, facebook messages, and texts in reply to my last blog post (which was three months ago.  It's ok if you don't remember.)  The response was overwhelming and sadly I never managed to get back to all of you, but I hope you know that I truly appreciated the time you took to read it and respond.

I should also thank the number of you who have emailed, facebooked, or texted me to check if I am still alive and happy and to gently remind me that I do in fact have a blog and wouldn't I like to get back to it some day?  The answer to that is that yes, I would like to get back to it.  So here I am.

Unlike last year, I didn't completely stop knitting during my first semester of school.  However, most of the knitting I have done over the past few months have been samples and I couldn't really blog about them.  Plus, I'm not sure how entertaining it would have been to read about sweater after sweater without seeing pictures or hearing about details.

At any rate, I'm back and I do have some knitting to show you.  I've been sneaking smaller projects in among the sweaters I've been knitting and am currently working on a pair of mittens for myself.  I know, I know, I'm a poor example of what a knitter should be at this time of year.  Knitters should be selflessly knitting away the hours until Christmas creating gifts for each and every single member of their extended family while avoiding household chores and fighting the urge to eat so as to maximize the amount of time they have to create their incredible gifts.

Well, then let's think of these mittens as a gift -- for myself.

 

I have big plans for these mittens.  What you see above is the outer mitten, but there is also going to be an inner (removable) mitten done in the lighter blue color.  It's going to be simple and so far it's looking exactly how I imagined in my head.  Plain, functional mittens with enough personality that they can't be something found in a store.  Can I show you my favorite part about these mittens?

When I charted out my cuff pattern, I did it so that it is seamless where one round meets another.  That jog always bothers me when knitting patterns in the round and I figured that as long as I was taking the time to design my own cuff, I might as well make it exactly how I wanted.  You see that right there in the middle?  The pattern just keeps on going happy as a clam.  And that makes me happy, too.

I'm going to try to be around these parts much more often from now on.  I've been keeping up with blogs, but I hardly comment these days.  Perhaps that's the next thing I'll have to change.

I hope you're all having a wonderful holiday season!