Mossy Cottage Knits

Well, if she plies them together, the darks and lights will line up kind of randomly. Some will, indeed, be medium aqua. Whether it looks that way from a distance will depend on how long the stretches of color are. If there are relatively long stretches of each tone, the overall effect will be a little stripey. I'm really fond of that look. I sent some handspun plied from two different dyed rovings to my secret pal during and exchange - you can see it knit up here:

http://secretyarn.blogspot.com/

I could teach TMK how to navajo ply (more properly known as chained singles) if she longs to keep the individual colors together. Just drop me a line. (I don't know if I'll make it to Ferals tonight.)

Um, yeah. Sheep poo. (I wonder who it was who first saw a steaming pile and thought, "I wonder what I could do with that?)

The vest, she is superfantastic! Can't wait to see the pattern.

What news of the donated yarn? I definately want some for Dulaan knitting and eagerly await your plans for shipping, how you want us to meet the shipping expenses, and stuff like that there.

(Don't tell me you have already posted this info and I missed it!)

Please advise.

That is better than the cow patty stuff I remember about 10 years ago. They would make lawn ornaments and other things (I remember a clock) the idea being as it rained, your garden was fertilized. The clock was shellacked so you could hang it on your wall. Yes it did look like cow s**t.

I frequently spin variegated wool and ply it on itself. The colors won't be muddied. If it is subtle color change, the resulting yarn will be richer and more complex. Stronger color changes or mixes will be wild and fun. I sometimes use a dozen or more colors. It is a fun process because you never know what will happen.

Sheep poo paper!?!

I found you through Janine. I am one of her California peeps.

Not to worry, Childe; I haven't executed Plan B of the Giveaway yet, mostly because the boxes are piled back up again and, need I mention?, my back has been out and now TMK's is. Not conducive to moving heavy, unwieldy boxes! But I promise we will get to it!

In Alaska, you can buy "moose nugget" earrings, tie-tacks and other lovely jewelry items in just about every craft/tourist outlet so why not sheep-poo paper (and can moose nugget or cowpie paper be far behind?).

Here in Colorado there are signs next to the on-ramp lights that specify "one car per green light" (I think I remember seeing them in Phoenix also). Perhaps the traffic engineers in Denver and Phoenix have visited Seattle during rush hour?

Thanks for the sizing information.

I guess I thought the Cloud Hat would be a child sized hat, which is why I thought it was so big. Now that I know it is teen to adult, mine is just right! :)

LOL Does it really matter that the water is the purest Welsh mountain water if you are boiling sheep crap in it? I don't even want to imagine the smell. What a hoot!

At the risk of being covered in sheep poo paper, I will confess that if I were driving in Seattle I might be confused by such lights as well. Unless there was a sign like noted above. I've never driven in any place with such a system, so I'd likely interpret it as some bizarre Seattle torture device! ;)

Regarding the on-ramp lights: The sad part is, the lights DO have a sign underneath that says "one car per green light." TMK

What TMK said.

The light thing is frustrating but have you seen people who don't know how to use a traffic circle -- it is unbelievable how they can mess up something so simple....

What trouble is TMK having with the merino? is it combed? carded? I have used Fleece Artist's merino roving, and for some reason haven't had trouble with it at all. (Please tell her not to hit me ;-))

HEY, stop being amazed that a person would have that reaction! *I* would be totally confused by a freaking light that flashed from green to red. WTF? I'd be swearing like a trooper and convinced it was BROKEN. Never hearda sucha thing. You Seattleites must drink too much coffee! Seriously. You have frickin' floating bridges and NOW THIS? And I see Rho saying TRAFFIC CIRCLES ARE SIMPLE? Is this WTF Wednesday? You're all nuts. LOL. I'm dead serious about this. Nuts!

I'm TOTALLY going to do that next time I'm at one of those lights!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go scoop the cat box and have Noah help me make some paper.

I might be thrown by the alternating light, but I can tell you for sure that as a lifelong Boston-area resident I may know how to use a traffic circle, but each time is still a challenge.

There is at least one intersection in Boston where you get a red light and a green straight-ahead arrow simultaneously. His first encounter with it put my DH into a complete tizzy. "It's telling you you can't go right or left, only straight ahead," I said, "what's wrong with that?" He thought the red light shouldn't be necessary, which shows he's not a Boston native.

What Melinda said. Maybe muddy, maybe not. The yarns that I've made from roving like that end up with some parts where the 2 plies are both the same color, and some parts where 2 colors spiral around each other. I am just now spinning some roving that has long long color runs, and I'm navajo plying it so that I can keep the colors together. So ply it up and see what you get! Always a surprise!

At a recent outing to the zoo, I saw they were selling elephant poo paper in the gift shop. I find the sheep poo paper slightly less intimidating, but not by much...

THAT is my ultimate ALL TIME favorite Mossy Cottage Knits story! Actually that was the blog entry that started the friendship between us! The rest is history. OH Thank you for the laugh again today!

i'm with the first lady. navajo plying will preserve color runs, if they're any length, and cut down on the barber-pole-ish look.

and a thought for you on the weight/yardage of the vest. before you attach the buttons weigh it on a fairly sensitive scale (a DDS would be good, if it's big enough, otherwise see if you can talk your local butcher into letting you weigh it.) then, take one yard of hte yarn and weigh it. hence the DD scale. do the math from there, lol

I am am fourth generation Torontonian. When I attend the first Downtown (Toronto) Knitting Collective meeting of the season tomorrow night, I'll travel 10 subway stops due south. (We've got tons of "south" in Toronto before you hit the lake!)

If Stephanie lives downtown and hence closer to the lake she has less "south" than me and might well have to travel north to get to the same meeting (thereby proving the existance of at least some "south"!)

I hope Stephanie is there - I know she writes knitting books and travels around with the sock and is fabulously popular but I'd love to ask her what it was like meet Ryan Morrisy - someone who puts her talents and energies into enabling people to use their own two hands to help needy children on the other side of the planet!

We get elephant poo paper here in Africa, but it's only the tourists who buy it. I have to confess that the lights thing would throw me off too. Your poor woman may have been a tourist.

I have yet to see someone do that at the onramp light, but I will be HOWLING WITH LAUGHTER when it happens!

Regarding avalanche yarn yardage, I found that the yarn is produced by JCA crafts. (I won't tell you how much time I spent searching online for "paterna yarn" before I realized that I had totally misread the label...) This is the Paternayan Rug Yarn (i.e. not the Persian or Crewel) which comes in 4oz skeins of 62 yards each. So your vest probably took about 225 yards, more or less.

Color cards: http://www.jcacrafts.com/index.php/content/blogsection/13/44/