let the bind-off begin

Yesterday I tried to capture the floppy-bushel-basket-ness of the current hap.

Here it is, slumped in a heap:

And here it is being held up by the chair:

And this is all I can see while I'm knitting:

Well, that's not *all* I can see. I can also see this:

Because if there is a goat nearby when I sit in this chair in the barn paddock, she or he will climb up on the rock I use as a footrest, to see what I'm up to. And when Violet saw this huge sack, she thought it might be full of carrot pennies and peanuts.

I told her, Sorry, but no. 

There will be peanuts after evening chores, as usual.

"I know you're busy, don't interrupt what you're doing with those sticks.
I'll just have a little look, shall I?"

I suppose it never hurts to check.

The hap is ready to bind off, with 624 stitches on the last few rows. Binding off may take a while, but I'm looking forward to blocking this and seeing it all clean and tidy and stretched out evenly. I hope I like it. If not, I'll have to knit another one. This is a really nice project for nor'easter/insomniac/stop-worrying knitting, whether for 20 minutes or for 4 hours at a stretch. Toward the end I was going slowly to make it last. But now: starting the bind-off.

~~~~~

fiber forecast

 More snow last night and today. This time, very wet and heavy.

The goats are all starting to shed their cashmere undercoats. In every year past, I've started combing Acer by late February. Within a couple of weeks, several others have shed enough for a first combing. I try to keep up, doing a bit every day, because once all the goats have reached what an unkind observer might call "the ragbag stage," it's easy to get overwhelmed.

This year is different. I felt sorry for the goats having to carry their cashmere during that crazy warm December, and by January, I was already seeing bits of cashmere hanging off the ends of horns after a goat had had a little scritch. Starting to drop cashmere in January?!

Now that we've finally been getting lots of snow and consistently cold weather, the goats are using their cashmere for its original purpose and I have postponed taking it from them. There's a time between the cashmere "disconnecting" and falling or being rubbed off by a goat, so there's been some leeway. But the forecast for the next 10 days is considerably warmer, so it's time to wave a comb over a couple of goats who have wisps of cashmere literally hanging off their topcoats. 

In related news (it is, you'll see), a few weeks ago I decided to try to use up the Shetland yarn left after knitting the first and second haps. By making a third hap. 

And because I wanted it to be distinct from the two special gift haps, I added one dyed color to the natural yarn palette, and also created my own stripe sequence. And I'm making it a good bit larger.

The way this pattern works: after knitting the center as a flat diagonal diamond, all the edge stitches are picked up on a circular needle and the rest of the hap is knit in the round and becomes a large and unwieldy knitted sack. Try to imagine knitting up something the size of a very floppy bushel basket, of which one can only clearly see the top edge. So there's not much sense of how the finished item is going to look when it's ultimately off the needle and spread out for blocking.

In other words, my stripe sequence may turn out to be rubbish. But there's no point in worrying about it, because we'll find out soon enough.

I always like to wrap up a knitting project before cashmere harvesting begins (see how we're getting back to the goats?), because when I'm using my hands for slowly combing goats every day for weeks on end, knitting must be backburnered until the combs are scrubbed and tucked away for another year.

This hap could have been done and washed and blocked in February if I hadn't decided to make it so big. But the end is in sight, in part because I don't want to leave this massive project gathering dust while I comb goats. And in part because the stitch count increases by eight on every other row and there is a limit to how many stitches can be functionally crammed onto one needle. 

Speaking of goats, it's time for evening chores - which I can now start after 5 PM without bringing a flashlight. I really enjoy this part of the orbit!

I hope you are having a weekend as magical as a snowfall.

~~~~~

result

On Christmas night, I took a project off the needles. I can only knit in short sessions these days - no handknitting marathons in the foreseeable future - so this second Hansel Hap has been in the works all Autumn.

Before washing and blocking, I couldn't resist taking one picture of the hap in all it's rumpled disarray:

In case it looks slightly familiar, this is the second version of the hap I made for my Occasional Helper and his wife when they were expecting their first baby. You can probably guess why I made this one!

The wool was all ordered from Jamieson and Smith in Shetland again, and this time I bought the main color on a single cone instead of in multiple hanks or skeins. It's slightly more economical that way, plus saves a lot of splicing. Yarn on a cone still holds some of the oil used in processing, and I wondered if it would affect my tension, especially in a project combining oiled and washed yarns. I considered winding off the amount needed for the hap, making a hank, and washing it before knitting with it, but was told it shouldn't be necessary. And I actually forgot all about the oil until just before washing the hap, but then I remembered and it's a good thing, because it might have been a bit of a shock when, after an hour-long soak, the wash water looked like this:

Downright murky!

It took three rinses before the water was clear:

Then the hap was gently rolled up in a big towel and Moxie and I pressed as much water out of the yarn as possible before beginning the blocking process. Blocking a blanket is a lot of gentle stretching and flattening and pinning. 

First this side...

then that side...

then around a corner...

and around and around and around.

Until what initially seems like an acre of unmanageable stretchy wet wool

becomes an orderly four-foot square.

It's quite satisfying when done, but the blocker may need a little lie-down.

~~~~~

the rest of the (hap) story

Remember the Hap?

Here's where it started.

Below is a link to the rest of the story.

In case you ever wondered.

Better late than never?

I wrote a piece about it, and about knitting gifts, 

for the wonderful fiberfolk at MDK, here:

The Gift of Collaboration

I hope you like it.

~~~~~

fluff piece

The cashmere harvest is well underway now.

 This is Mallow, having his second combing session of 2020.
Mallow doesn't think much of the idea.
He likes the carrot penny and peanut part, but that's about all.
The careful combing for 20 minutes to get half a sandwich bag of raw fiber?
"Meh," he says.

Sheep say "Bah!" but goats invented "Meh."

I'm trying to comb two goats each dry day, but sometimes only manage one. And days like yesterday, when I had a medical appointment and was away for half the day and exhausted when I got home, it was all I could do to get everyone fed and watered.This morning my back is still aching from yesterday but I intend to get two goats combed if at all possible. The pressure is on: we've had a couple of very warm days, and everyone is at some stage of shedding now.

The time to get the cleanest fiber with the smallest percentage of top coat is as soon at the goat starts to shed the cashmere undercoat. In just a couple of days I've seen some goats go from extremely clean cashmere to cashmere containing so much shed topcoat I wonder if it's even worth keeping. Likewise, a couple of my goats also temporarily get flaky skin toward the end of their cashmere shed. They don't have chronic dry skin, and after several years of unsuccessfully using dietary supplements to try to prevent the flaking, I now think of it as a harmless seasonal celebration of air getting to their skin after a winter of wearing cashmere underwear under a topcoat. But it means I can get beautiful clean cashmere from that goat on Monday, and when I check it again on Thursday, I'll see flakes. Well, I can only try my best to keep up with everyone and harvest the fiber at the best possible time. Tick-tock.
~~~


Speaking of time, it's a great time to look for Venus in the evenings.
~~~

In other fiber news, the hap is off the needles (!) and awaits washing and blocking. This picture was taken when I was putting in a lifeline before the final rows, in case the experimental bind off wasn't acceptable and I needed to rip back and return all those stitches to a 40-inch circular needle. There were 560 stitches in a row at that point, so a lifeline seemed like a good idea.

I'm seriously considering building a hap stretcher to block this hap, instead of painstakingly pinning it out on mats. At the moment, it's hard to carve out time to do either, but we've got a rainy day coming up, and my goats aren't comb-able on wet days. A trip to the hardware store would be needed to get material for the stretcher frame, then there'd be the actual construction, but every time I think about the pinning option - which would probably take a couple of hours on my hands and knees, and then a couple of days of keeping the cats and Piper away from an intriguing area that would undoubtedly draw them like a magnet - the stretcher frame seems like an excellent idea. Stay tuned.

By the way, if any readers have ever used a hap stretcher, I'd love to hear about your experience and any tips you'd like to share. I've read a couple of excellent tutorials on making and using them - here's a link to a very detailed tutorial, in case of interest - but I've never seen one in use. In fact, I've never even seen one not in use, so I don't know if there are any pitfalls to avoid.
Please feel free to comment or email - thanks!

Now, it's time to slice some carrots.
~~~~~

fiber friday

 The hap stitch pattern has become interesting:

No audiobooks, for the time being! 

I am having to pay very close attention

and do a lot of counting aloud.

The first color change has begun,

soft and subtle: 

I think - I hope! - this will be one of the nicest things I've ever knit.

It's certainly one of the most joy-filled. 

~~~~~

wednesday wip

The work in progress had a brief hiccup a few days ago, only because math is not my favorite subject. Fortunately I discovered my little miscalculation before knitting an extra acre of garter stitch.

Just a temporary setback.

This Shetland yarn is delightfully "sticky" - in knitters' parlance, the texture is such that a strand of this yarn will lightly grip another strand - so it was quite easy to get 144 live stitches back on the needle: they just sat there nicely, waiting to be picked up. Unlike my usual teeny sock stitches, which disappear into themselves the moment the working yarn is pulled out.

 That same sticky quality also makes joining the yarn quite simple. The first step is opening the two plies at the end of each yarn to be joined, and cutting an inch or so from one ply on each end.

One ply on each end to be trimmed,

which reduces the thickness of the joined section.

Next, cross the single plies, fold them back onto themselves, add a few drops of water, and roll the join briskly between palms.

I didn't get a picture of this step because it takes both hands and I was being careful. If anyone is baffled by my description and needs to see it, let me know and I'll set up a couple of shots with demo yarn.

Result.

Onward with the third skein of yarn!

~~~~~

flying my hap flag

It's been quite a while since I made my first half-hap using Gudrun Johnston's pattern, "Simmer Dim." At the time I expected to make another someday, and guess what...

I've got the yarn

I've got the needles

and

today is Cast-On Day!

This project will be a special gift, and since I wanted to be sure to make something the recipients will enjoy, it is not a surprise - it's a collaboration. I provided lots of options for very different patterns and yarns, and there was a good bit of to-ing and fro-ing as the options were explored and considered. I would have been happy to make whatever was selected - and I tried very hard to answer questions without influencing the decisions - but I must say the choices made turned out to be just my cup of tea.

"Hansel" - another design by Gudrun Johnston - is a full sized version of a traditional Shetland Hap shawl. It will probably finish at about four feet square, perhaps a bit more when blocked. The pattern calls for five colors: a central garter-stitch diamond in a main color, then a wide border lacework section with gently wavy stripes in four additional colors plus the main color, followed by an edge in the original main color with options for simple or more elaborate finishing.

Like the traditional Shetland hap design, the chosen yarn is also traditional: Jamieson and Smith's "100% Shetland wool from the Shetland Islands." And - this is quite wonderful, I think - all five colors in this hap will be natural, undyed wool. The five shades were chosen from a range of nine, called things like Moorit and Katmollet and Gaulmogot, which are the names of the colors of the Shetland sheep.

This is going to be a joyful project, and I'll try to share a bit of the process - and woolly pictures - as I go along. I'm planning to get a good start on it before cashmere harvesting begins, because both knitting and combing cashmere require very similar use of my hands and I usually stop knitting entirely during combing season. This year I may just pace myself so some days can include a bit of combing and a bit of knitting.

Off to a good Gaulmogot start.

~~~~~

as it happened

Thank you all so much for your good wishes regarding my foolish injury - much appreciated! Update: my thumb no longer aches all the time, so that is good progress! I hope to get back to outdoor projects (beyond the minimum daily requirement of chores) in another day or two. This blog post will be the most typing I've done in a week!

One small achievement: after not knitting at all for a few days, I did manage to finish my hap, in a series of many, many, very short stints of knitting.

Washed:

 and blocked, using roughly one million pins:

and finally, posted on my ravelry project page

two days before the hap-a-long deadline.

Photographed at sun-up:

I wish you could feel this - it's so light.
It's not even weighing down the ferns.

Not quite as light as cashmere, but then, not much is.

I'm well pleased with it!

It will make a cozily warm - but light! - neckerchief/scarf.

I will very likely knit another.

Hap construction is interesting, and apparently addictive:

many hap-a-long knitters made more than one,

and most of them were shawl-sized, or even blankets!

~~~

In other news, it's been raining. A lot.

When not actually raining, it's been very hot and muggy.

We had one pleasant day last week; it was very hot but not as muggy.

That day, Campion (my Champion) was not feeling well.

He's FINE now.

So I spent six anxious hours on a chaise in the paddock,

keeping an eye on him.

Apart from anxiety, it was nice to be outside and not getting rained on.

You probably can't tell, but in the picture below,

the rain was coming down in sheets.

I've been spending a lot of time on the porch.

If you come visit, you can spend time on the porch, too.

I highly recommend it.

~~~~~

but will i ever play the cello, doctor?

There has been a little knitting going on the past couple of weeks. Usually in the evening, as a way to unwind and transition to sleep. Sometimes the transition is so quick, I fall asleep with my knitting needles in my hands.

They are pointy. I should probably stop doing that.

Anyway, the actual knitting has been interesting and educational. I'm using a beautiful stranded/Fair Isle pattern, free on ravelry: SpillyJane's Sea Mineral Mittens

This is a big step up for my knitting skills.

And the knitting part is going surprisingly well,

but the color selection and combining is not.

These two swatches are the same pattern in different colors.

I'm not happy with either combination, so more experimentation will come. Stay tuned. Or better yet, send advice!

Before tackling a third version of the mittens (each of those samples meant several hours of knitting), I took a break from tiny needles and cast on a very different project: Simmer Dim, by Gudrun Johnston. It's a scarf/shawl-type item, using traditional Shetland "hap" structure. (I know very little about this but lots of people do, so if you are interested and google "Shetland hap" you'll probably find loads of information.)

This project has been going swimmingly! 

Like the stranded mittens, this is also different from anything I've made before, so it's great fun to knit. And I'm using yarn sent from Shetland, which makes every stitch a special pleasure! I'm trying to finish it in time for a "hap-a-long" that ends on the 12th. And last night, when I put my knitting down three seconds before I fell asleep, I thought,

"I might finish this in just a couple more days!"

This morning, chores took longer than usual because I was feeling a little shaky after a 3-day migraine (very rare, thank goodness!). When I was finishing up the feeding, I hurriedly (cue foreboding music here) reached for a nearby bow saw to cut the twine on a bale of hay. I broke my pocketknife a couple of weeks ago, and have been using all sorts of inappropriate tools to cut baling twine ever since...a coping saw, bolt cutters, hoof trimmers...Because They Are There.
As are the Shouty Goats.
"Staaaaaarving! We are Staaaaarving! Hurry up with the haaaay!" 

Well, this morning the baling twine was resisting the big teeth of the bow saw, so I forcefully brought the saw sweeping down like a mad cellist - whack! - across the twine. Unfortunately...my thumb was awfully close to that twine.

WOW did that hurt. But...why was there only a little smear of blood?

Because a blade point had come down hard on the nail. Blood was seeping through a tiny jagged-edged hole punched right through the center of my thumbnail. I performed this act of incredible stupidity about ten hours ago and my left hand still feels like a truck is parked on it.

So...it is possible the hap will not be finished in a couple of days.

But the goats got their hay, and I still have a thumb, so there's that!

Have a wonderful weekend, my bloggy friends.

And be careful out there!

~~~~~