arisaig, nearly done!

I began this sweater on a bumpy bus ride in Northern Peru in August 2007.   I’ve been knitting it little by little ever since, and now 7 months later, it’s fiiiinally nearly completed!  all it’s lacking now is the edging, which I’m going to do in the same blue color.   when I first started to sew in the sleeve, I noticed sadly that I had been knitting rather tightly (except for the back piece which was knit on the bumpy bus with much looser tension.. it’s hard to notice the difference if you don’t know to look for it, but it’s quite noticeable to me) and the underarm was going to be uncomfortably small.  So I ripped out the seams, undid the bindoff, and knit in a few extra rows in the shoulders.  Seamed it back up and it fits!   I still can’t put anything remotely bulky underneath, but it’ll be perfect to throw over a dress or tank top.  After years of being drawn mostly to designs with cables, it was a refreshing change of pace to do something lacy.

Knitting’s really become a necessity for me here.   I’m not living in a situation where I can just go out for a walk on my own the way I would at Vassar or in Albany.  I used to take walks to clear my mind, to enjoy the fresh air, to get my blood moving, to think about things, to release tension, and mostly to get to class on time.  Now that I’m not living the academic life, I’m not on a beautiful enclosed campus with acres of green space, and i’m not in a neighborhood that is safe for young women with a gringa face to go walking around on her own for hours, I no longer take long solitary walks.  Now knitting has taken a different role in my life.   it allows me to channel my energy/tension/thoughts into a productive and meditative activity that i can carry with me wherever I go.

In the next few months I’ll move to a more friendly neighborhood where I will be able to walk around comfortably on my own.  Maybe then I’ll take my knitting to a park.

 

spinning in puno

puno spinning lesson 3, originally uploaded by Hannahcha.

Last weekend, David and I took a much-needed last minute trip to La Paz, Bolivia so I could fulfill my visa switcheroo — leaving for 24 hours to come back and get stamped for another 90 day stay, since I’m still here under a tourist visa. The trip was disastrous in several ways: 1) we didn’t bring nearly enough cash to cover our needs AND the surprise $100 visa that is suddenly necessary for all US citizens entering Bolivia, so we were left with $15 for our weekend in Bolivia. 2) I got whammed by el soroche, or altitude sickness, and spent most of my time vomiting, trying not to vomit, battling dehydration, or groaning from my horrible headache. 3) The migrations officers in Bolivia asked us for “propinita” on the way there, to repay the favor of giving me a last-minute visa, and we politely declined to bribe them for any “favor.” They conveniently forgot to stamp David’s passport so that two days later on our way back, they asked him again for money to repay them for correcting the error that was somehow supposedly our fault.
HOWEVER: despite all this, we really enjoyed the trip. Somehow in the midst of all the stress, we let ourselves thoroughly appreciate the beautiful mountains, the deliciously cold rain, the idyllic farmland passing by as we drove several hours through the countryside, snow capped mountains and heavy clouds in the distance, just being the two of us, cozy together against all odds.
On our last day, in Puno, Peru (around the famous Lake Titikaka), we went in search of alpaca fleece for spinning. Around the corner from our hotel, we found a lady selling artesanias who was happy to sell us a very large bag of deep caramel-colored alpaca fleece. Much to my delight, the woman insisted on giving me a spinning lesson. She pulled out her drop-spindle and showed me how she has spun since she was 7 years old. It was amazing to watch her — her hands moved so rapidly, drawing out and spinning a long impossibly thin and even thread of alpaca fur, without any carding at all. This was exactly what I needed to see — how to manage the fiber. She let me take the drop spindle with me, we exchanged contact info, and I left, glowing with happiness from my surprise lesson. At home with my drop spindle and my wheel, I’ve been practicing every day, still feeling clumsy and slow, but enjoying very much the attempts I’m making. I’ve successfully been making a relatively even and thin thread on both tools, and my first attempt at plying lies ahead…

I made these last night: http://coconutlime.blogspot.com/2006/05/lime-buttermilk-cupcakes.html
highly recommended!

Sergio is here today. He and David just roasted a coffee sample we recently got, which is a “monsooned” coffee from India. What is monsooned coffee, you may be wondering? after being harvested, the coffee was left to dry in the monsoon winds, which resulted in it being inflated much larger than most green coffee, and so it roasts in a special way. we just tasted it in espresso, and wow, I have never tasted an espresso (especially single-origin) that was so low in acidity and full in sweet flavor.

Business update: The coffeeshop opens in about two weeks! (we won’t have monsooned coffee, but we will have a variety of Peruvian coffees that are also quite delicious.) The bar will be installed on monday. !!!! Things are moving right along!

 

My very first spinning!

hannahspins, originally uploaded by Hannahcha.

Reader’s Digest version: This is going to take some practice.

Yesterday afternoon, David and I picked up my very own bag of baby alpaca fleece, courtesy of our friendly neighborhood Nakayama alpaca knits & crafts store. we were the first people who had ever requested the natural fleece from them, who normally specialize in yarn and knitwear. so I have a bag of the SOFTEST caramel-colored fleece. it smells clean and natural, although there are little bits of vegetable matter stuck in it. I read in my books about carding. realized i have no cards. whoops. but the fleece seemed selected, uniformly soft and fine and very fluffy, it wasn’t at all smelly or gross, so I just pulled out some hanks of it and made my first attempt on the wheel.
It took a while to figure out how the heck you get the wheel to alternately spin the yarn or wind it onto the bobbin. between the two of us (the one who made the spinning wheel and the one who is learning to use it) we eventually figured out how to adjust the brake tension. adjusting that helped enormously, because at first it was twisting the yarn without winding onto the bobbin, and then it was winding straightaway without twisting. gah! and I have no idea if i’m totally mauling the fur by just plucking at it with my fingers so the handfuls of fleece feed up a small amount of fibers at a time… or if that’s the general idea..? either way, it might do me good to invest in some carders so I can control the fiber more smoothly.
but despite my total inexperience with fleece and the wheel, I did manage to make about a foot and a half of something vaguely yarn-like — twisted fibers that didn’t break and only had one or two lumpy parts. alright!!

 

Summertime

How do you deal with crafting in the heat?  It’s summer in Peru, and man, it is HOT.  on top of that, we are working hard on setting up our espresso bar, which means lots of scraping walls, painting, driving around in a hot unairconditioned car, shopping for supplies in warm markets.  We are thisclose to having everything we need to open, although there are still miles to go before we sleep.

I am half a sleeve, some edging, blocking, and seaming away from completing my arisaig, after months of “poco a poco,” and unfortunately I have found myself suddenly without much time, inclination or relatively cool temparatures to sit for hours with handfuls of wool.  hot hands do not like to have yarn slipping over them.  When I’m awake, I’m busy and sweating, and when we’re home resting in the slightly cooler night, we just want to eat and sleep. When I do finish this sweater, I’m afraid I’m not even going to want to put it on, because a second in a wool sweater is a second in which I may simply melt.  As for beginning to spin, again, I’m going to have to cope with some warm weather and incredible busy-ness.  sigh.  knitting is so much cozier when it’s chilly out.

There’s a good chance that in a few weeks I will take a brief trip to Bolivia, which might entail 12 hours in a cushy air-conditioned sleeper bus, which would be ideal for finishing the knitting part.  let’s hope that works out!  as for spinning, once my wheel is completely finished and I’ve got the alpaca in front of me, i’m sure that not even a heat wave could keep me from it.

 

arisaig in progress

arisaig 1, originally uploaded by Hannahcha.

Being such a huge fan of ysolda’s patterns, I’m in the midst of my arisaig. I began knitting it on a long busride in the north of Peru in August 2007. It’s now January and I have completed the back, both fronts, one sleeve, and am in the midst of the second sleeve. I knit for between half an hour and an hour every day, hence my slow progress, but slowly but surely I am getting this one done! It’s harder to knit lately since it’s summertime in Lima, and wool is not so nice to handle when it’s warm and humid. I’m hoping to finish by the end of the month. This pattern is delightful, as are bamboo needles. I’d never done much lace before, and you can find plenty of mistakes in the back piece, which was the first section I made. I don’t mind a few mistakes, since it’s for me and not a gift for someone else, but I’m happy to report the rest of the sweater has gone much more smoothly.

 

Gretel

beret 1, originally uploaded by Hannahcha.

This is my version of ysolda’s Gretel, which I made using Indiecita DK Baby Alpaca yarn for David’s mother, Marta. Beautiful! This pattern was a joy in every way. This is my most recent completed project.

 

David’s sweater

David’s sweater, originally uploaded by Hannahcha.

This photo was taken February 2007 in my parent’s living room (see? lots of stuff!). The handsome man to my left is David, my boyfriend/partner/novio. He’s wearing the sweater that I made for him, using a pattern I found in my grandmother’s old Vogue Knitting magazine from 1948. Sizing was a challenge, since they seemed to have been much smaller 50 years ago. David is not a small man, so I tried my best to expand the pattern. Also, the yarn for the pattern of course no longer exists, so the nice folks at the Yarn Barn in Lawrence, Kansas (via internet) helped me find an appropriate replacement. If I did it all over again, I would have made it longer in the torso, but aside from that, I’m very pleased with how it came out. It’s double-knit in a soft wool with a cozy foldover collar. To my right in the photo is my best friend since high school, Leigh Ann, and her boyfriend/my cousin Jeremy.

 

machu picchu

machu picchu, originally uploaded by Hannahcha.

Knitting a very simple scarf for David, while on the train back from visiting Machu Picchu, after a strenous and gorgeous 4 day hike on the Inca Trail, early November 2005. I also made the hat that I’m wearing in this photo, a slouchy brimmed corduroy tam. I copied the pattern directly from a friend’s coveted hat. the lovely lady to my right is Shireen Amini (she knits too, but mostly she makes music! www.shireenamini.com).

 

my hat

my hat, originally uploaded by Hannahcha.

a wonderful cabled brimmed hat, pattern from Stitch & Bitch. I recall having some trouble with the pattern — the rows never came out evenly, I always ended with some leftover stitches, despite not having made (or found, more likely) errors. I managed to work it out, in the end. Not too shabby!

 

minisweater

minisweater, originally uploaded by Hannahcha.

Minisweater from www.glampyreknits.com. Very pretty, but I rarely wear it because the yarn is slightly itchy around the armpits. If I make it again, I’ll use a softer, lighter yarn. This one was a slightly chunky wool, I can’t remember the exact brand, but it was probably Patons, since I bought it while working at a fabric/yarn store that carried mostly Patons. sheesh, I really do need to do a better job of recording what i make and what I make it with!