Things fiber arts have taught me about haircare

Hair and wool are both protein fibers. Many remarkable similarities there!

-Moisture plus heat plus agitation equals fulling. Remarkable how similar that list of no-nos is to blowdrying hair, isn't it?

-Blocking (ie soaking and pinning into place, then allowing to dry) gives wool a specific shape until the next time it gets wet. My beautiful plait-induced waves will do the same, I just need to remember not to visit the waterpark.

-When wet-blocking a wool garment, many patterns recommend soaking it for at least half an hour before washing so that the fiber is fully saturated and gets properly clean. 5 minutes is really not long enough to have saturated hair when taking a shower.

-If one strips all the oil and lanolin out of a fleece while washing, it's a good idea to oil one's hands before carding so the fiber doesn't get all static-y and jumbled. Must remember to condition my hair regularly.

-Longwool breeds tend to have extremely oily cut ends and dry, brittle exposed tips. Spinning longwools is much easier if they have been trimmed first. Hey, just like styling waist-length hair!

-Wool always takes longer to dry than I think it's going to, but it drys faster if it's spread out flat rather than clumped together. I really shouldn't be surprised when the plait of wet hair I went to bed with is still wet in the morning.

WWKIP Day and new knitting friends

Saturday before last was World Wide Knitting In Public Day - featuring the iKnit Scavenger Hunt! I'd heard stories of this marvellous event, but had never been. This year I was determined to go. I even skipped a reenactment event* for it. :D

I got up bright and early on Saturday and headed down to iKnit. Thankfully the Northern Line was running normally! Oystercard loaded up in case of emergency bus journeys and bag full of snacks, knitting and water and I was good to go. None of my regular London knitting buddies was around, so I went hoping to join another team when I arrived. Most people already had teams of the maximum size, but there was another woman who had no team. And thus it was that Grimwitch and JeffNet** met and formed Team Bob!

We'd a long list of tasks to complete, ranging from spotting letters on shop signs to knitting a scarf to taking a picture of ourselves knitting with a naked person. No, really! Here's the photos to prove it!

Knitting in a red phone box:

Knitting with a London policeman

Knitting with pigeons:

Knitting with a celebrity:

Knitting with a statue of a naked person:

Knitting with a bunch of real naked people - the London Naked Bike Ride!

And finally, knitting on a Routemaster bus.

We lost, spectacularly, but had a ton of fun. We even stopped for a dodgy hot sausage from the Bulgarian guys outside the British Museum. (As an aside, one of my favourite hobbies is listening to the two of them being snarky about passers-by, since they assume no-one around them understands. Oh, how wrong you are, chaps!)

Then on the Saturday just gone I attended a wedding reception. It being an evening do, I decided to wear my red Swallowtail Shawl over a black dress. Good call - I didn't need the warmth, but I met another knitter! Turns out that a girl I'd been at uni with has turned into a knitter. She came bouncing over to ask me about the shawl and we ended up swapping spinning wheel stories and chatting about Ravelry. Lots of fun, especially when combined with a cheesy disco and lots of champagne.

*It was only the monthly revel, not a real 'event'
**Ravelry names given to protect the innocent!

Silence on the blog means...

... progress on the WIPs! I've been in a bit of a finishing frenzy for the last few days, stemming from the realization that I'd gotten up to an even dozen in progress. Not any more! :D
First up, the fluffy garter stitch scarf I've been working on here and there. I finished this on Friday afternoon and wore it out that very evening. Took it to a friend's birthday party, where I had an amusing experience. Among the strangers and acquaintances, a former flatmate was there. He remarked that he couldn't imagine me without my knitting! And when another person starting being a bit weird (you know, that whole "why on earth would you knit at a party?" thing), he jumped up and started raving about the wonders of knitting and how cool it is. Yay for great friends who respect my hobby!

On Monday I was good and finished the shawl for hub's Granny. She's much shorter than I, so this will hopefully fit her perfectly.

And this morning I managed to finish my chunky purple hat! Hubs was out at a meeting last night, so I settled in with the hat and a DVD of Twilight that my grandmother sent me. It was good timing too, as it's been pouring rain and windy the last couple of days - I definitely needed something to keep my ears warm!

Slowly recovering

One of the effects I often experience after finishing a big project is a total disappearance of knitting energy. The Yarn Harlot calls this phenomenon 'knitting whiplash', which seems to me a good description. It's been rather sad this time though, because I finished the dress right before Easter Closure - 6 days off and no motivation to knit!

I had some motivation, truthfully. But I'm on a self-imposed crochet ban until the end of April because my elbow is giving me problems. So, no ripple bedspread, no Totoro. Both of which I really felt like working on. I did, however, manage to finish the first of hub's Thuja socks and cast on for the second. That'll go back into my bag to take to work tomorrow.

I've been picking up some of my other WIPs rather halfheartedly. A couple of rounds of a mitten, a row of a shawl, a bit more Monkey sock. I didn't even particularly want to start anything new at first! Over that now - I've cast on for two new projects. The first is a fairly simple drop-stitch scarf using some yarn I bought ages ago and have never been able to use. This seems to be working out, finally. I've used 1.5 of 3 balls and plan to use it up entirely.

The other new project is an Aeolian Shawl from the latest Knitty. I'm using the very first Posh laceweight I ever bought for it - Cecilia in the colourway 'Orchid'. It's gorgeous and I love it. So far I've only done the set-up chart because I'm now back into the swing of knitting and want to finish a few more WIPs before really getting into this.

You know you knit too much when...

...out of the blue, a friend asks if you could mend his precious kilt hose, oh and could it be done within a week please? You say yes, collect said hose, admire the argyle, find the hole and realize it's not too bad. Unravel until the broken bit can be sewn in, then kitchener the live stitches for an invisible repair. Doesn't even need a proper darn.

The kicker - discovering that, even though you're not a huge fan of grey, you have a skein of yarn in exactly the right colour and weight to match the hose.

unanticipated outcomes

A few days ago I discovered that the Student Union was showing the newest version of Sweeney Todd. You know, the one with Johnny Depp singing. So, since £3 is a good price for a cinema ticket in central London, off I toddled. Lighthearted, bit of a giggle, not really worth owning on DVD to be honest.

Anyway. I think I want to take up barbering. Since I have so much free time! I've been toying with the idea for a couple of months now, thanks to all the reenactment. The generally accepted wisdom is that the accessories make the outfit. I disagree. I think it's the hair that makes the outfit. You can have all the accessories you want, but purple spikey hair is going to kill the outfit no matter what you're wearing. So is the wrong kind of facial hair.

I have to learn to put up my hair, and since I end up trimming my husband's hair and beard anyway I may as well learn to do it properly so that it looks right. I think I'll be practicing using a cutthroat razor on my legs first before trying his chin though!

Bah

Betrayed by the frailties of my own body, I didn't manage to get the green tunic finished over the weekend. I had done so much sewing that I was having muscle spasms in my right forearm every time I made a stitch! So on Sunday I worked on my Odessa hat, which was great. I might even get it finished this month, who knows?

I also worked on my veil. I'd cut it a little wider than I needed, which ended up being a good thing. Turns out that it has some stains on the edges, so I was able to just cut them off. Now it's just a case of pinning, ironing and hemming. I hope to get that done this week, once the last little bits of hemming on the tunic are done.

And I went shopping. For a good reason! I had bargained with a friend who does tablet-weaving for a belt in exchange for some elbow-length fingerless gloves. Foolishly, I figured that she wouldn't have time to make it for ages, but no. When we met up at the Shire picnic on Saturday, she had finished it! It's absolutely gorgeous, and will look splendid with my teal gown. I'd brought along the skein of Alpaca Silk I bought back in March to see if the texture was ok for her gloves (she's allergic to wool, poor thing), and not only did she love the yarn, but she loved the colour! So I went and got a second skein to make her the gloves. And since I was in the yarn shop on the 1st of June, when I'd declared 100g of yarn to be permissable, I indulged in a skein of Jitterbug in the colourway Copper Beach. It's destined to become a pair of socks for the husband once Summer of Socks starts! I also got a set of DPNs in a size I didn't have for the gloves and some removable stitch markers.

A frustrating lunch hour, though, as I'd forgotten my black sewing thread and couldn't sew. So instead I worked on another pair of booties. The first one is nearly done, so I will have a gift to take when I go to visit Baby and his mum! Yes, one of my friends has had her baby. Amusingly, he arrived on her birthday.

The project of insanity

I needed something in period to take to an SCA event this summer. And I really wanted to take knitting, since that's my main craft. Now, knitting was done in the Middle Ages, but it was a little different, as far as source material leads us to believe. Mostly very high gauge accessories, like stockings and gloves. I'm not going to spend hours and hours of my life making a pair of stockings at 15 stitches to the inch, because they'd eventually wear out. So, I decided on gloves. Properly cared for, they should last forever.

Now, knitted gloves tended to be made of very fine silk. Conveniently, there is a website (Colourmart) that sells very fine silk at very good prices. They are based in the UK, so I received my silk within 36 hours of ordering it. I was hugely impressed.

Reason I'm insane?

That's a 5p piece, which is about the same size as a dime. The line across it is one strand of the silk. I don't even own any needles small enough to make these gloves. I will need needles smaller than 2mm in diameter! This website stocks the appropriate sized double-pointed needles; someday I'd like to have a set of 5 of all of the sizes smaller than 2mm.

Gift-Giving

I spent yesterday afternoon in the company of my two lovely be-bumped friends and their partners, and decided that it was the perfect opportunity to hand out the baby clothes I've finished so far. They were really happy - the booties were a huge hit! I've had requests for many more pairs, which is fine by me since they were so fun to knit.

It was decidedly odd, though, being the only not-pregnant girl at the table. Especially since both of my friends are very pregnant.

Why Easter was so productive

I woke up early on Easter morning and decided to do all my baking. While the first round of cupcakes was in the oven, I discovered this lovely view out of my office window.

The streaky blurs on the picture? That's snow. So's the white stuff on the roof opposite.

Feeling weird

One of the stranger side effects of such a long weekend is that it feels like Monday today, despite it actually being Wednesday. So the next weekend is going to be rather odd when it arrives!

I'm halfway through the final repeat of the foot on the first Monkey sock. Once that's done I'll transfer it to some stitch holders and work the second one down to the toe. I think I may have to make this pattern again, because it's wonderful. I was a little concerned that it was going to be too tight over the heel, but once I'd finished the gusset and tried it on, it fit perfectly. And it's so comfortable! Part of that is just the general yumminess of the yarn, but the pattern is so stretchy that it fits my normal foot and bizarrely skinny ankles equally well. Love it.

Ripple afghan tonight. Although I've just been notified that our game isn't running, so I may just go home and indulge in sock-flavoured goodness.