Try Not; Do or Do Not; There Is No Try

If you're a Star Wars fan, you'll recognize the title as Yoda's words to Luke during the latter's training as a Jedi. Yes, the Baby Yoda sweater is nearing completion. I've knitted all the large pieces (still one I-cord tie to go) and have done about half the seams. I don't particularly love doing seams, but they are so satisfying that I don't keep around unseamed items long-term. Thus the Yoda quote. After seaming, I'll just have the neck border to knit, and it's on held stitches, so there's no picking up of stitches to procrastinate about.



(Who, me? Block before seaming? Oops...)

I'm still not in love with this colorway as knitted, though I loved it as skeined. :( But I've had great comments from people who've seen it in progress. Since it's a baby sweater in very non-femme colors and I'm obviously pregnant, it prompts a lot of questions about whether I'm having a boy or a girl. It's a boy, since you asked; but my tendency has been to knit in unisex colors for DD, too, partly to amortize my knitting effort over more children and partly to encourage her to enjoy a variety of colors and ways of being in the world.

The spinning continues. I now have dates to spin in all three of the kindergarten classes at DD's Waldorf school -- more guilt-free spinning time, hooray! I'm doing a lot of hand-carding this weekend so I'll have enough fiber to spin while I'm there -- the carding is a bit tedious, but should be worth it for all that good wheel time.

This week my loaner wheel from spinning class is a Lendrum double-treadle folding wheel, and I love it SOO much more than the Schacht Matchless single-treadle I was using last week. Mostly I love that it starts and treadles so easily and doesn't walk away from me while I spin. This may be mostly a single- vs. double-treadle thing; I don't want to write off Schacht without trying one of their double-treadle wheels, so I'm hoping to try the Ladybug before we're done. Schacht is my oh-so-local spinning wheel producer, so I like to buy what I can from them. But I don't know if I can buy a wheel that doesn't have a large bobbin available for plying, so the Lendrum is a stronger contender at this point. I'd rather have a starter wheel whose limitations aren't immediately apparent to me -- there's not much room in my house for multiple wheels!

I also want to try out the Kromski Sonata, which poses a problem, because no store within hours of me stocks them as far as I can tell. But the other day at my LYS, while I was waiting to ask my spinning teacher a question, she was talking to someone who owns a Sonata (she bought it on the Internet) and was helping a friend shop for a wheel. I brazenly asked this total stranger if I could come try out her Sonata at her home, and she said yes! We have a date in a couple of weeks.

Oh, and I'm ordering a big ol' fleece to work on. I'm hoping this is not serious folly for someone who doesn't yet own a wheel! But I think that if spinning doesn't work out as a hobby for me long-term, both the fleece and the wheel should have good resale value. The fleece is a 9-pound monster from Cormo Sheep and Wool in Orland, California. I'm psyched about having something to spin that will yield yarn soft enough for next-to-the-skin wear by my picky family, me included -- Cormo is the same micron count (fineness) as merino wool, but with longer typical staple lengths for nicer spinning. If only it were superwash. (Sigh.) Ah, well. Still fine for hats, scarves, and probably enough wool for two or more adult sweaters, though I'll have to see how much of the weight washes out as lanolin. And of course all that's in the future, once I actually process and spin the stuff up! I'll probably swatch some of it and try washing it as I do my socks, in a lingerie bag, cold water front-loader machine wash, air dry. If that works, I'm golden. Baby wear, here we come! I'll be sure to post photos of the fleece when it arrives.