How About A Farm Pond And A Chicken?

When Kate Davies released her Carbeth sweater pattern a couple months ago, she posted it to her blog with pictures taken posed alongside a snowy loch...complete with a swan gliding past.  When Mason-Dixon Knitting posted the Bang Out A Carbeth Knitalong, they specifically commented on the swan as well.  It really was a stunning picture!

As Carbeth sweaters were banged out around the world and pictures started appearing on Instagram they soon became known as the Carbeth Swan Dance.  Well, I don't have a frozen loch...or a swan...but I do have a cool sheep (who also happened to provide the yarn for my Carbeth), a farm pond...and an Adventure Chicken.  Let's do it!

Baaxter walked out there pretty darn willingly considering it had been at least two years, maybe three, since he'd had a collar and leash on.  This is the Frog Pond, not the Ice Skating Pond.  It's the small pond/group of trees/native plants you see in front of the bigger pond at the back of the farm.

Tim took a bunch of pictures in various locations and positions and...

...like most pictures of me, the less of me showing, the better ;-).

These are my favorites, even though they don't really show much of the sweater.

"You're doing a good job, Baaxter.  And your sweater is very nice.  Cozy and comfy."

While the sweater was designed to be a stylish crop top, since mostly where I wear my sweaters is to work out in the barn in the winter, I decided to add a few extra inches to the body length.  

Can you believe this is that cute little brat who terrorized 20 and Auntie Reg (yikes!) four years ago?

I'm not sure if B. Willard is noticing the new hand knit sweater (being a Sheep of Impeccable Character, this would not be...out of character) or is just amazed that I was wearing something relatively clean for a change ;-).

"Yep, that's not a swan."

Nope, that's the Sheep Chicken.  She was ready to go to bed so she was easy to catch ;-).

I give the Carbeth two thumbs up.  I think it's going to be perfect warm winter barn sweater.  The Bang Out A Carbeth knitalong was great fun and the Iknitarod (the re-knit) continues to be my all time favorite winter event.  As always, I was in great company and that makes it all worth it.

The Final Miles

While 20 and Carbear are cleaning up the last of the sourdough pancakes I'm packing the sled for the last few miles into "Nome".  We should finish tomorrow!

I couldn't pick a favorite picture, so I'm posting all three.  My beloved Red Lantern, mushing along with me since the Keebler shawl five years ago (thanks, Alice! :-) is still going strong.  The first place musher reached Nome early this morning, but there are many Iditarod mushers and Iknitarod knitters still out on the trail.  

We'll keep the light on for you!

The 2018 Iknitarod Race Prep

After seeing the iPhone compilation of pictures and videos from knitting on the Baaxter Carbeth, 20 knew he'd lost his new sweater and that we were going to re-knit it.

I hadn't done a cast off or woven in any of the loose ends, so it was physically easy to pull the needles out and start frogging (rip it rip it).  Mentally...well, a. it wasn't right and I wasn't happy with it and b. Stella (the queen of rip it back and make it right) came down to help and support.  It wasn't so bad ;-).

We used my handy Nistock skein winder to...wind it into skeins.

One sleeve.

The body.  I'd spit splices all the original skeins together so we decided to let it wind off as one biiiig skein :-o.

We used steam to relax all the knitted curls...without setting Stella's hand on fire, but Be Careful with steam!

Back to normal.  Wool yarn is fun :-).

Just for curiosity I decided to hold out one sleeve to wet block just in case I needed to know something important about how the knitting would behave.  I don't usually wet block my swatches...and should.  

We took measurements, let it soak for 20 minutes, set it out on a towel, let it dry completely, remeasured, learned that Baaxter's wool yarn was going to respond the way wool does almost every time, steamed out the last of the curls and wound everything from skeins into balls.

It doesn't look like a sweater's worth of yarn there, but it is.  1700 yards total, but held double to knit a second attempt, smaller Carbeth sweater.

20 was okay with getting his Ford sweater back, but asked if he could participate more this year so he will be going along as my Iknitarider :-).  The Carbear will be the knitting bag mascot :-).

The Baaxter logo from a couple years ago has been updated to include 20 and reflect Baaxter's more, um, mature color ;-).

The Iditarod's Ceremonial Start is underway, so the Iknitarod "mushers" are eligible to cast on, so I'm going to go get busy!  Hope you enjoy following along :-).

"When I grow up..."

"...am I going to be a sweater?"

We're counting on it...but it would be nice if you'd try to stay a bit tidier :-o.

The 2018 sweater making preparation is not far off.  The bigger flocks getting ready for lambing are shearing now.  We won't be far behind, especially if this crazy weather holds up.  It won't though and the surest way to get it to cool back down will be to shear the sheep...

Speaking of sweaters, I've decided to take the Carbeth back from 20 and re-knit it for the Iknitarod, which starts this Saturday.  Wait a minute.  This if probably not making any sense to anyone who isn't following on Instagram, now that I think about it.  Let's back track...

I finished Baaxter's Carbeth.  I was between sizes and went up instead of down...and should have gone down.  Not only that, I wasn't happy with my decrease stitches (what shapes the sweater and makes that point in the top center).  

Not only was the right side not as even as it should have been, but I also had some mild puckering on both sides, front and back.  Both of these problems could have been fixed with an aggressive blocking...which would have made the sweater even bigger.

So my first thought was to trade it to 20 (who looks great in it) in exchange for the Ford sweater that I'd like to have back ;-).  Then I saw that cute video of the afternoon I knit out in the field and got all sentimental about it and now I'm going to re-knit it for myself during the Iknitarod.  Sorry, 20.

Before I do that though I wanted to practice those stupid decreases, so I decided to knit a teddy bear sized sweater...which is oddly how my last winter Olympics challenge ended, now that I think about it...and here's a link to that post.  Oh wow, I'd forgotten about the Burrnie/Daniel incident!  How sweet to go back and remember :-).  

I finished the sweater in time for the closing ceremonies and I think it turned out very cute.  I completely fixed the puckering issue and figured out how I want to do the right hand side decreases.  I'll be ready to restart on Saturday!

Just to keep the bear sweater exciting, I'd pulled out a skein of handspun yarn that I thought would be enough yardage.  Boy, was I wrong.  Luckily I remembered that I'd spun it during the Tour de Fleece a couple years ago and I still had my on paper notes about who I'd spun and yardages.

Okay, I spun that FOUR years ago.  Good grief!  Thank goodness for the blog records :-o.  I'd spun that from a friend's flock in hopes/plans to make her something from it...which I obviously never got done.  Luckily that roving is still here (still in hopes/plans to still make her something from it) and I was able to spin enough more to finish the sweater.  

I believe it's a Perendale fleece and I really enjoyed spinning and knitting with it.  I think fiberpusher may still be buying fleeces from this flock for her breed study offerings.  Here's a link to her shop and they'll also be at the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival in May.  Yikes!

Yep, the fiber season is getting ready to start :-o.

How Many Sheep Does It Take To Knit A Sweater?

Baaxter's pretty sure he knows the answer to that question.

You know that old joke...

...where the punch line is "I didn't even know sheep could knit!"

They can't.

Well, we had snow yesterday and today it all melted and warmed up enough that I could knit outside this afternoon.  Baaxter "helped".  I'm ready to start the collar tomorrow, which means the end is in sight.  It's been a fun, easy knit and so many friends are knitting Carbeth sweaters that it's felt like a virtual knitting party :-).

Baaxter Will Never Let Me Down

It turned into a lovely, sunny afternoon and I decided it would be fun to see if I could set up a "casting on" photo shoot with Baaxter and his soon to be banged out sweater.  You can't do this with just any sheep.  Oh, you could separate out that one sheep and lock them in a pen with the yarn and they might eventually go check it out, but to just set it out in the open...  I was pretty sure Baaxer wouldn't let me down.

"Hey, Baaxter!"

"Baby B-e-e."

Poking he head around the corner of the barn.  "What?"

"Remember the sweater I told you about?"

"Yeah."

"I brought the yarn and pattern out.  Could you come over and check it out so I can take your picture?"

Slowly walking straight over to the Grahaminator.  "Yeah."

He's a sheep of few words, but dependable actions (good and naughty ;-). 

The real reason I felt pretty confident that Baaxter would come over and show interest in a knitting project is because Baaxter IS interested in wool projects.  Remember how he reacted to his woven blanket?

Murphy was very interested as well.  "I wish I could be a Carbeth."

"Guess what.  You are!  Your Auntie Elaine is knitting one up north with yarn she spun from you! :-)"

Probably the real reason Baaxter is interested in wool projects is because he's still got a little naughty streak in him ;-).

"Baaxter!!!"

Teefers are cute when you're a baby, but Not Around Yarn :-o.

Looks like we're ready to cast on!

Jumping On The Bandwagon

When I saw Mason Dixon Knitting's headline "Bang Out A Carbeth" Wednesday I was immediately intrigued.  That's a super cute sweater and I just happened to have Rebecca Boone yarn burning a hole in my stash.  It would be perfect!  

The sweater is short and wide.  Rebecca Boone is short and wide!  We're going to bang it out?  Anyone who's gotten between a Cotswold and food has a particularly good understanding of the word "bang"!

20 dug through the stash basket and pulled out Rebecca Boone's pretty silver yarn.  He grabbed the Baaxter Black's yarn as well.  Just in case.  

"Just in case, what, 20?!?"  

"That I'd be short on yardage or not be able to get gauge?!?"

"Just sayin'..."

Well, it would have been a game of yarn chicken...if I'd been able to get gauge :-(.  Looks like we're going to [Baaxter] Out A Carbeth.  There is enough yardage and the gauge was spot on.  The only thing I'm not 100% sure on is his color.

By itself, it's not bad.  It's a darkish grayish brownish with an almost tweedy quality.  Next to the shimmery silver Cotswold though it looks a bit drab.  I may be letting that sway me.  And I shouldn't.

Still, I cut a few short samples and mixed up some possible overdyes. 

One thing I really enjoyed about the Elizabeth shawl was the use of color over her grays.  Baaxter didn't let me down either.

Even though muted by the darkish grayish brownish, I felt like the colored colors were too...colorful.

These two were my favorite.  You're shocked, right?  I like both of these naturally looking browns.  I like Baaxter's real natural color as well.  Any thoughts?

The Finish

I made it in to "Nome" about 40 minutes before the Red Lantern. Saturday was an epic knitting day and I'm glad everything worked out so that it could be an epic knitting day. I just knew the sheep shearer was going to call and say he was on his way...

I guess technically it's not really, really finished until the ends are woven in, but I purposely didn't weave my ends in.  Take a look at the really, really wavy patterning and the wonky ends.  If that didn't block out nicely.....well, I was prepared to frog the whole thing and make something else.  I'd been psyching myself up (or maybe out) the entire race.

By the time I got into the Wool House and folded it up, I was sort of willing to accept the wavy patterning.  Even not flat, it's still pretty.

The two ends though?  Ugh.  That just won't do and I couldn't imagine...and if it wouldn't I was already trying to think up a different way to re-work the ends.  

Block on with confidence.  It's wool.  Give it a chance.  Yeesh!  And into the washing machine it went.  

I soak large items in the washing machine with moderately warm/hot water and a little Mrs. Meyers laundry soap.  I then carefully spin it out, just like washing fleeces, pull it out, refill washer with plain water, resoak and spin, pull out, refill with warm water and a little Mrs. Meyers fabric softener (My name is thecrazysheeplady and I have an addiction to MM lavender ;-), soak for a couple minutes and spin.

At this point I had to locate my blocking pins.  That I hadn't used since...when?  When was the last time I actually finished a project?  Oh yeah, the Baaxter blanket from last Iknitarod.  Yeesh...  Finally found them in the office (?) and moved on to blocking.

Would it block out to my satisfaction?

Yeah, I guess I'll be weaving those ends in ;-).  Whew!!!  

Team Shot

Does this smile look familiar?

And that wonky end?  I have no idea how it blocked out straight, but it did.  And easily.  I'm surprised I have any friends left after so much whining about it :-o.

The reason I was going to be so willing to rip it all out and make something else was the yarn.  I love this yarn.  I love how it looks, feels, knits, shows patterning.  It may be my favorite yarn I've ever spun and knit with, all because of a little hint of Cotswold blended in.  

There wasn't anything wrong with the straight Liddy yarn, but for this particular project, I needed to think outside the box.  Or at least outside my head.  It's important to put all the pieces to the puzzle together correctly.  Knowing how different fibers work, how they might work together, is all part of the fun.

I tried to pick some pictures that look how the yarn feels.  Can you see that little hint of fuzziness (technically called halo)?  Can you see a tiny hint of shine (technically called luster)?  I am totally doing this blend again.  In fact, I'm going to try a little of Bullwinkle and Levi this spring.  Putting dark gray and white together might be too weird...but it might be pretty...  Heads up - don't answer your phone if you see it's me calling ;-D.

I love how this picture looks so much like drifting snow.  Or an icy river.  This project, Stories from Snoqualmie Valley, was the perfect Iknitarod challenge.  While I'd liked to have had more time to watch the race in real time or chat with the Ravelry group, I liked the "checkpoints", the "landscape" the section of endless miles of snow.  I felt right at home.

I'd also planned to tell some stories of my own.  Or Liddy's, I should say.  Even Buddy has some stories.  That he's happy to YELL ALL THE TIME ;-D.  Are you tired of hearing about all this or would you like to read a couple stories?