School is very busy at this time of year. A look back at my archives and I can see I usually cease posting sometime in March (this year it was February!) and don’t resume until April, May, or even June. Very boring – very little time for knitting, less for knitting groups, and none at all for spinning. The start of term 2 this year looks similar, which is depressing.

I’m stuck on sleeve island with the lightweight cardigan (eek! not blogged that project since December!), and sock two of the River Rapids Socks got cast on, then knit half the leg before tiring of the thin yarn and tedious stitch pattern (this can only be defined as a “long term project” – sock one cast on 1st April 2008, completed on Year 8 camp March 2009, sock two cast on February 2011…).

The very little knitting time I have had has been spent knitting a cover for my shiny new iPad2. I decided in January that I had a bad case of the “I wants” but decided to wait for the iPad2. As soon as the specifications of the new model were available, I started designing and knitting a cover. The inspiration was this bag project on Ravelry, which had originally been knit as Boo Too from Knitty. I chose two balls of Noro Kureyon Sock (S149 & S185) at Cherryhills and knit some swatches. I tried to felt the first swatch. There’s one project on Ravelry that claims to be felted Noro Kureyon Sock. I could barely get it to do anything but grow alarmingly. I scrapped the felting idea, went down a couple needle sizes, and knit a swatch I was happy with.

The first time I cast on, the iPad cover was apparently going to be too narrow. I recalculated a new stitch number and cast on again. Too wide. The maths was right the first time – I cast on the original number of stitches again and it was fine. No idea what was wrong the first time. It was slow to knit the slip stitch pattern. It might have been nicer to knit this pattern for something wider as the colour changes in the Noro were slow, particularly for the very long stretch of purple. Seeing as I love purple, that’s not really a problem. Most of one side of the cover is purple. I was kind of glad I didn’t finish the knitting until after I had my iPad2 (on launch day – not a great experience and I won’t ever line up for an Apple product launch ever again) since I didn’t quite know what effect the smart cover would be on the final dimensions.

I finished the knitting on Monday and blocked it. It became longer and narrower when wet, but I still managed to block it to the required dimensions. Yesterday, I cut out the lining fabric lining (Saffron Craig’s “Bird Tree” in bright blue to match my smart cover) and sewed the zipper in to it (it is asymmetrical so that the zipper can be opened up just enough for the charging USB cable to be attached while the cover is on). Once the lining was sewn, I basted the knitted part over the top and stitched the side seams. I would have taken photos as I did all this, but the camera battery was flat. Later, I’ll hand sew the cover to the lining to finish it.

I went with buying the iPad2 on release day because I wanted it before travelling these holidays. I took my laptop to Adelaide in 2008 and resented the bulk of it. I took my iPhone to New Zealand in 2009 and, while that worked okay, the screen is tiny which makes some stuff hard. The iPad2 has already exceeded my expectations. I’ve cancelled my home delivered newspapers as I now read them on the iPad, I subscribe to Interweave Knits through the Zinio app (and can see myself buying some books through that down the track), have loaded some school textbooks on it for easy access, have a video cable that I’ve used to watch ABC iView on the telly from it, use it for web surfing, email, tweeting, and on it goes. And I have the camera connection kit, so hopefully there will be a few more posts from me from the iPad while I’m on the road.

Here’s a little test blogging this last part from the iPad – a photo of the socks I’m knitting with the left over Noro from the iPad2 cover. I used about a third of each ball and the balls have three colour repeats in them – so two are left. Perfect to be spilt into a colour repeat per sock. I’ll have to rip this out and start again though – I cast on the wrong number of stitches…

It appears I live in a reptilian paradise. I share the environs of my little house on the edge of the bush with at least five reptile species. There are little common garden skinks in large numbers around the garden – Calli likes to chase after them when I let her out (which has not been at all this Summer due to the high number of ticks in the area this year). Also numerous are a large species of skink (I’m not sure which species either of the skinks are, it’s a large group). Calli watches these ones from inside the house. She made such a fuss about one outside my bedroom window last month that I went outside and photographed it. If you look carefully, Calli is behind the lace curtain on the other side of the glass.

Also quite common are the leaf-tailed geckos. I had them at my last home too. Soon after I moved here, I came home from work to find a baby gecko on the ceiling of the bathroom. I will never know what went on between the gecko entering the house, and ending up on the ceiling, and Calli will never tell… The one below was one I released from my dyepot in the garage last month. Last week, I found one behind Calli’s litter box in the laundry, and managed to get it out the back door before Calli knew about it. They may look cute, but they make high-pitched squeaking noises! This one was not happy with me. I think he liked living in the garage and didn’t want to move back outside.

There are no blue-tongued lizards here. I’m not sure why – maybe because there are so many other lizards that there isn’t room for one. But I have a few other less common garden inhabitants. Both are known to my neighbours, but it has taken a while for us to meet. The first of these two large reptiles is an juvenile lace monitor (they grow much bigger than this one). One day last February, while working in the study, I heard something scraping against the outside of the spare bedroom window. Calli was watching it intently. This small lace monitor was attempting to climb up the window to gain entry and access to Calli. I think it saw her as a potential meal! I haven’t seen him lately, but the neighbours have.

The last inhabitant is the largest! My neighbour showed me a skin he shed last year, so I knew he was around here somewhere, and big. We met yesterday. I got home, and found him sleeping in the garden bed beside where I park my car. He’s still there now, over 24 hours later. This overcast weather means he’s not very active. He’s a diamond python and I’d estimate he’s about 2 metres long. And he’s fat.

With all the lizards here, several visitors said I wouldn’t have any snakes. Well I never believed that. I’m expecting to come across a brown or a red-bellied black snake in the grass around here one day. Might even add a blue-tongue to the lizard collection.

I’ve had two days back at work last Thursday and Friday – professional development days. School starts properly this coming week. The hot weather is never kind to me, and knowing the week ahead will be hot is just cruel. So what have I just finished knitting? A cowl. Excuse me if I don’t model it for at least a few months!

I was amazed to find I got the gauge specified by the pattern first try and had no need to modify the pattern at all. This made it a fast knit (12 days), even though I didn’t pick it up to work on for maybe half those days. I ended up using about 60 grams of the 100 gram skein. The remaining 40 grams will go into the stash for a scrappy scarf I want to make from leftover bits of handspun down the track. I’m sure the cowl will be lovely and snuggly, but I have no need for snuggly right now. I should get back to the lightweight cardigan next.

Otherwise, I’ve been spinning. I forgot to photograph it, but I’ve spun a whole bobbin of singles from the wool/alpaca/silk I purchased in Adelaide in October 2008. I wish I could normally turn out a bobbin of finely spun singles every two weeks… I will now switch back to the grey merino project for the next bobbin so I don’t get bored.

I’m calling “Super Bunny” done.  He’s not going in the Easter Show as I just didn’t have the patience to re-knit the legs and also realised the head has the same problem.  The pattern calls for long tail cast on, which I don’t normally do.  Because this sets up the first row in stocking stitch to be a purl row, I had to fudge things, and it resulted in a less-than-ideal appearance on the base of the feet and the back of the head.  Toys are fiddly, and attention to detail is necessary for a show.  I think he’s gorgeous just as he is, so that’s how he’s staying.

I’ve cast on a new cowl in the merino-silk hand spun I finished last year.   The pattern is the Northumbria Cowl from Knitscene Fall 2010 magazine.  It’s a very simple 2 row lace pattern.  I haven’t knit enough yet to tell if it will come out the right size, and the pattern doesn’t specify the yardage required, so heaven only knows if the yarn will go far enough.

I should get back to the lightweight cardigan knitting.  It is nearly at the point at which I need to knit the sleeves.  I should do the maths before returning to school next week.

The site overhaul is now complete.  The front entrance has been revamped, the BlogRoll reinstated and the pages on Tencel Dyeing moved to within the blog pages structure.  The comment system is working well – all the spam has been picked out by a plugin without trouble, and the legitimate comments get through with little issue (I have the WordPress app on my iPhone so I can even approve comments on the go).  I’ve setup the redirects that I could, but was unable to redirect old blog post addresses to new ones.  No matter…  It’s hardly the first time that’s happened!

Yesterday I attended a spinning workshop on plying yarns with Marie Clews at the NSW Hand Weavers and Spinners Guild Summer School. I haven’t attended any workshops since the one in which I learnt to weave with the Armidale Spinners and Weavers back in 2004, and never any in spinning (I consider myself an intuitive spinner, not a technical spinner. Do not ask me to count!). Overall it was a good day and I learned a lot that will improve my spinning.

I’ve photographed my little sample cards and am posting this here, mainly to remind myself what I’ve learnt. I arrived at the workshop with two bobbins of spun singles – one of purple merino I spun years ago with the intention of plying it with a silk merino blend, but the colour wasn’t right for it; and one of bright pink that I spun last month to contrast the purple from some fibre of unknown type (other than it being wool) I had in my stash. I used my Sickinger wheel since I really need to get a new drive band for the Wind Wheel.

We started off with a standard two ply:

From this I learnt that my singles are a little over spun for a two ply yarn, so I really should sample in future to get the twist right to make a good balanced two ply.

I wound some pink onto a spare bobbin to make a three ply (1 x purple, 2 x pink):

The first section of this that I spun (not shown) was over plied. I was still working on getting the right amount of plying twist into this, but it was a more balanced yarn than my 2 ply. I love the roundness of 3 ply yarns, but chain plying makes little “bumps” that this method of plying doesn’t. This is the kind of yarn I’ve been aiming to spin, especially since I bought a new lazy kate when I decided to do this workshop. My old lazy kate only had space for two bobbins, the new one has three.

Next up was a cabled 4 ply yarn. First an over plied 2 ply was spun onto two bobbins, then the two 2 plies plied with each other (try saying that fast!):

I hate crepe yarns, and this one was particularly ugly. I also hated the plying – from trying to work out how much over plying of the 2 ply was needed and how much twist to give the two 2 plies back on each other. The two colours in the plies tended to form longitudinal stripes along the yarn that made looking at what was going on during plying just appear like a coloured mess! Yuck, yuck, YUCK!

Next up, I wound some purple singles onto the (last!) spare bobbin, so I had two pink and two purple plies, and did a regular 4 ply yarn:

This one surprised me because I really liked it. Well, not the colours… It has that same roundness as the 3 ply yarn, and I didn’t have trouble determining the amount of twist necessary. Like the 3 ply, it was also nicely balanced. It seems I’ve been intuitively spinning my singles for nice balanced 3 or 4 ply yarns. Maybe I will regret having bought a new lazy kate with space for only 3 bobbins…

Next up was a method I have plenty of experience with – the 3 ply chained yarn (often called “navajo plied”). Just one single is needed for this and I went with the pink:

No trouble with this since this is how I spun the angorino for Gaia (spinning and knitting links) to preserve the long stretches of colour. I also like to use it for small amounts of fibre so I can spin all the singles on one bobbin, then chain ply, leaving no leftovers on one bobbin as splitting the fibre into two lots to put on two bobbins almost always results in one bobbin having more singles on it than the other. As the single doubles back on itself, it makes “bumps”. These, ultimately, are where the fibres are likely to break and weaken the yarn over time. But this method has its place.

I also made a short sample of some machine embroidery thread plied with the pink wool singles. I found it hard to control, and the result was too ugly even to photograph. And most art yarns don’t interest me much. Marie demonstrated a few other methods I didn’t try.

I have two completed lots of yarn I’ve spun recently I still haven’t posted on here (a 3 ply and a 2 ply). I really should photograph them and do so. I’m now keen to continue with the spinning of some natural grey merino I’ve already spun one bobbin of, and tackle some alpaca blend sitting in the stash. Three plys.