When I began the Lintilla shawl out of Miss Marja’s handspun, I knew I had a really large amount of yardage so I knew the shawl would be big. Knowing this, I brought it to work even though I would not typically bring to work a project that requires one to weigh the remaining skein to figure out when to begin the edging.
I knit and knit and knit during work breaks, quite happily enjoying the way the yarn was knitting up. At some point I looked at it and said “Yep, that’s getting large!” But I would say “Just to the end of this work break” and then forget to bring it home and weigh the skein.
Once I did weigh the skein, I realized I had far less than the 25% required for the edging. However, I’ve fudged that number pretty hard in the past, so I was willing to give it a try rather than ripping back out. There was a time there that I really felt like I was going to make it! Spoiler-I didn’t make it.
You can see at the top right that I have only a few stitches left to finish, but I ran out of yarn. Ooof. Despite knowing this was the likely outcome, I still felt like I’d have to let this hibernate for a long while before I started again. But, after an evening of biking and mowing lawn, I was ready to sit down and do the mindless work of frogging and picking up live stitches. I’ve already begun again.
In biking news, Miss Butterfly and I headed out on a quick ride due to the many yard chores needing to be done while the weather was pleasant. We rode down to a local park, rode around the park, and then headed back another way. We were riding over some quiet roads with narrow streets and no sidewalks. I am teaching Miss Butterfly to ride roads from time to time so she can be confident with it, since often doing so is actually safer. As we were riding these narrow roads, we heard an SUV come up behind us, it was revving it’s engine and I could hear it going way too fast for the area. I couldn’t tell if it was driving aggressively because of us, or if that’s just how that person operates. It’s common here and probably most other places to encounter cruel car drivers who believe it’s their sole purpose to scare people on bikes. This SUV passed us quite fast, and then I heard a police siren. I thought “It cannot be that the cops are after the SUV that just passed, could it? That would be too wonderful.” But it was true, the cop passed us, and pulled that SUV over. I don’t know if the traffic stop was due to us or previous bad behavior, but it’s always nice to feel vindicated when one is following the rules of the road by bike. We didn’t figure we wanted to try to pass the SUV even with the cop there, so we headed up a different road and went home.
My 3 ply yarn from the brown batts is done and dry!
That’s 615 yards of I’d be willing to guess DK weight yarn. Sport to DK. It’s good and chunky but even enough to easily work into a project. It’s got a lot of fantastic depth in color yet retains the overall earth tone nature of the original batts. I am quite pleased!
I am taking two days off to spend extra time with Miss Butterfly. She’s off school and so we have many errands planned, a sleep over with a friend, and I keep planning a bunch of chores. I mention this only to say I think I am going to try an internet free vacation. Doing so for a weekend was so helpful in feeling more relaxed and as if I had more hours in the day. I would promise to take lots of pictures for next week, but it looks like it may just rain the entire time in which case pictures may be mostly impossible. In any case, have a great rest of your week, and I’ll do my blog post catching up early next week!
Suzy Sells Sea Shells 
I am glad that you and Miss Butterfly were not hurt in the encounter with the SUV – and how nice that there was a cop there when you wanted one! I have often wished for such a thing. It is good to teach her to be comfortable and careful on the road, and there was an example of why.
Good you are having a few days off with her, and while I will miss you, internet free is not a bad thing – another good example to set for her! I hope there are SOME photos for us next week, because I expect to see all kinds of knitting and spinning and gardening projects moving forward!
speaking of knitting and spinning – such a bummer about losing at yarn chicken – but now you get to knit a little more with that wonderful yarn. 🙂 And the brown bat yarn looks beautiful. I love the little pops of color, especially the turquoise. You know, you had me looking online at drum carders the other day – not getting one any time soon, but I love what you do with yours!
Have a lovely few days off, and I hope the weather cooperates better than you anticipate.
Think I can wash windows in the rain? Because that’s a chore I really would like to get done!
As for the drum carder, it’s an expense. Not just the carder itself, but then getting the base fibers and the add ins together so that one has enough to find inspiration in a big box of fiber. That being said, I do use it quite a lot. I got my carder at a fiber festival, and it’s no sort of name brand. It won’t do those pretty wide batts with gradients of color, but works beautifully for mixing colors and fibers into one semisolid batt. And that’s good enough for my personal craft room operation!
Yes, you can wash windows in the rain – better results with no sunshine!
I guess I will hold off on the carder, because my big expense is the new spinning wheel next month, plus a trip to Wisconsin Sheep and Wool in September. Mentioning another big piece of investment might cause A to run screaming from the house, and that would be bad. 🙂
Thank you so much for teaching Miss Butterfly how to ride on the roads, as someone who has never learned (and is terrified to do it) I know it will go a long way in boosting her confidence and ability to navigate around new places.
It’s a bummer on the yarn chicken, but it looks so lovely already that I imagine it will just be amazing when finished.
Have fun on your internet free time, I hope you and Ms. Butterfly get a chance to do a lot of fun things together during the break.
We felt PARTICULARLY vindicated since on Sunday we were riding on the road, but she was too tired to continue up the hill. So, we both got on the sidewalk to walk our bikes up the hill in a heavy traffic area. About 30 seconds AFTER we began walking on the sidewalk, some idiot rolls down his window and yells “GET OUT OF THE FUCKING WAY!!!” at us! Now, the SUV that got pulled over last night was NOT the same SUV. But even so, it helped as we’d been feeling quite irritable about that encounter.
I love it when the police are around at just the right moment! All too often I see drivers doing dangerous things and wonder where the police are. I’m glad you & Miss Butterfly are okay and that you had a relatively safe opportunity to help her learn what to do in a situation like that.
I can’t believe how close you were to finishing the shawl! Good on you for getting right back to it instead of letting it languish as a UFO!