Osborn Fiber Studio

My ongoing project remains getting my UFOs down to a manageable level, so I can start my “next big thing” with a minimum of guilt. I sucked it up and ripped out the three projects that just weren’t ever going to be finished. Here is the hard (well, really pretty soft) evidence:

The poor crochet sweater got finished on the drive back to MD in August; all it had left was a little seaming. I don’t know why I stopped for so long without finishing it; it must have been despair. It just exactly fits my 12-year-old sister; I don’t know what hormone-induced delusion made me think it would ever fit me. Ah, the power of sheer optimism. And not really knowing how to measure gauge in crochet.

Mom blocked it after I left (thanks Mom!) I think this is the first time I’ve so utterly abandoned a project that I left it to block with someone else! Mom, can you take a couple pictures of it when you give it to Dani? If not, you know, it’s okay… clearly, I’m not that invested.

My current reading knitting is Naomi’s wee dresses, and the emergency shawl is waiting patiently to be un-forgotten.

August’s socks are done, and Septembers have begun coming to class with me.

Allison’s projects are 2 for 3; they merit a post of their own in due time.

The Sweater is so close that I actually bought buttons. I’m on the sleeve border. Two more Bond movies should do it.

 

The only bit of my UFO problem that still really needs wrangling is the whole spinning thing. But I have a plan for that.

Jared and I have started observing a Sabbath. Not in a legalistic way, not in a really Old Testament sort of way, but in a way that’s trying to get at what God was getting at by instituting the whole Sabbath thing. If you want to know more about it, I highly recommend reading Marva Dawn’s book Keeping the Sabbath Wholly. It’s a quick, readable, empowering book that gives the theology and the good sense logic for why keeping a day of rest is still a good idea, and what a Biblical idea of rest actually means. What really happened is that Jared and I both read this book for the same class – albeit 3 years apart from each other – and finally decided to try it. 

Anyway, as a Sabbath gift to myself, I’ve been allowing myself a little time to spin every Sunday. (We celebrate from Saturday dinner to Sunday dinner). I’ve enjoyed it mightily, and in this way I’ve knocked out the rest of the natural-colored Shetland sampler that Jared got me ages ago. the CPW spins fine and fast, as promised.

I’m left with 5 cute little balls of rather fine singles. I even think I know what I’m going to do with them: a gradient! (surprise, surprise.) I’m hoping for 600 yards of 2-ply, alternating pulling from both ends of the same ball and from the end of one ball and beginning of another.

The only trouble is, I’m not entirely sure what order to put them in. At first, I thought I’d put them in order of value.

“Value” isn’t a moral judgment; it’s just the absolute darkness of a color – in other words, which would be darkest if I put this picture in black and white.

But that grey in the middle is throwing me off. It makes the gradient a little odd in terms of hue – that’s which actual color it is. If I put the hues together, the gradient would be in this order:

Just for kicks, I put the grey near the top, to see if that would work…

 

Not so much. I think i’ll stick with my original plan. Unless one of you can see something in these pictures I’m missing, and have any ideas to the contrary!

How is your UFO pile looking? Does having lots of things on the go make you feel free, or panicky? With school starting, I’m a little nervous about how much time I’ll have at the needles and wheel, so I’m feeling the need to keep battening down the hatches. I’m not entirely sure it’s working…