27/6/26

Laddered down to fix the issue, because I felt it'd probably bother me even after it was completed and even though it was quite a few rows, it'd be more difficult to do later. As I suspected, there was more than one issue - it looked especially off to me because I knitted in a float somehow. If I let the float free I think it'd be obvious on the back because that float would be extra loose, so I fixed it with the float included. The overall effect isn't too noticeable; it's at least less noticeable than the original mistake was.

Going back up was difficult...and I ended up missing one stitch entirely, so I replaced one mistake with another. HOWEVER this one bothers me less, because I had to examine it closely to even notice that one vertical stitch was missing. It's only really visible on the back, and because there are floats everywhere, someone would really have to be looking out for irregularities to see it. Since I don't want to stress the yarn more (it was already sticking to itself when I laddered down and had to pull the fibres apart) I think I'll just accept this one mistake.

26/6/26

On to the third mosaic part - delayed because of Deltarune. But it's turning out nice. I realised there's one part in the previous section where I seem to have purled instead of knitted...I'm not sure what happened, maybe I was trying to fix something and didn't quite do it right. It's not terribly obvious, but it bothers me, and I'm not sure if I should ladder down to fix it...

23/6/26

Finished first mosaic part, starting the next. Working off charts as it's easier to see which stitches line up. So far, so good (aside from that one row where I slipped a stitch and had another weird accident later); I'm wondering if I'm going a bit too loose with the mosaic because it's a bit more see-through than the plain garter, but it uses up more yarn and the pattern looks neat so tentatively I'm going to continue this way. Enjoying the colours and the fabric continues to look fairly consistent. Loose ends have been woven in but not fully trimmed yet.

Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise with these yarns' grists but it feels surprisingly light for its size. The yarn I used for Drachenfels is thicker and denser so it shouldn't be surprising but that one turned out quite weighty, and maybe I was subconsciously expecting this to weigh similarly to that. But no, it's lighter than expected...I think that's good, considering it's a fairly large shawl.

22/6/26

Started knitting, haven't got to the mosaic part yet (currently start of section 2). I don't have 3mm needles so I'm using the cheap interchangeables, which I've been getting used to, but it's annoying when the yarn catches on the joins. I'd like to switch to the bigger needles soon (which I do have circs for, so the joins are smooth) but still have some more garter rows to do...

Unfortunately I think I accidentally slipped a stitch so I think I will need to ladder down to fix it. Thankfully it's not too deep in...colour-wise, contrast seems perfectly fine. Fabric is not as consistent as it would be with commercial yarn but in the grand scheme of things, is remarkably even-looking. Blocking will probably fix some of the issues and I think it'll be worth trying to figure out how to do that with my limited space...

Seems dry enough so I took in the yarn and did a quick remeasure. It did shrink, but...

289 rounds x 2.3m = 664.7m
664.7m/160.4g ~= 414.4m/100g

The grist is more within a normal ballpark, though still light for Polwarth. It's puffed up a bit I think. It feels lighter in the hand than the MC, even though the entire hank should be heavier...also, while it's still squishy, it's more drapey. Feels surreal to be holding both of these hanks and thinking that I made these. They're not perfect, but I got to the point where I can spin the yarn within the range of what I want to use in a project in about 6-7 months of learning this skill. Though, the real test is in how it knits up...

I think about 1/3 of this yarn isn't going to be used, which is a fairly large amount of colour I'm going to be missing if I start from one end. I'll take another measure tomorrow and think about how I'll try to remove it (the main issue is identifying the continuous loops enough to remove a certain amount of it). One possible way is to just wind it as I normally would (not on the swift) while weighing the remaining amount. OR, I can weigh the ball cone and use that to obtain the weight of the yarn removed, which seems less fiddly (and I can use the swift in this case). I should need to remove at least 28g (assuming there will be an extra 28g at the end that will be unused/a buffer), then the rest can be wound into the actual working ball. My main worry is that this might remove most or all of the Ginger... For the MC I think I can just wind up the entire thing since the lighter end is preferable to the darker end.

--

Balled up - the swift didn't work because the diameter of the yarn loop is way too large. Figures. I had to wind it the normal way which came with its associated tangles.

Ball 1 (MC) is split into 2 balls, because the yarn got caught in the mechanism of the ball winder which got some oil on it and I'm not going to knit that into the project.
Ball 1: 136.4g
Ball 2: 8.9g
I highly doubt I'll dip into ball 2, but it's from the darker portion of the yarn and comes after ball 1.

Ball 2 (CC) is also split into 2, with the smaller one being the lightest part of the gradient that I needed to remove in order to let the project hopefully reach the darker part of the gradient.
Ball 1: 129.4g
Ball extra: 29.6g
I'm unsure what to do with the extra - even if I made a cuff I'm unsure if it would use up a significant portion of it, but I guess I can figure that out later.

So, I'm ready to start knitting - gonna see how much progress I can make on it before Deltarune drops. Otherwise I could probably finish this in a week or two of intensive knitting...

17/6/26

So I did end up spinning up the last dark bits. Split them by weight per ply into 2 bobbins (removing the bits I knew wouldn't spin well), which actually turned out to not be necessary...

Plying took ages. It was also kind of unstable, some bits kept breaking and other bits where I tried to fix bits that were too thin ended up bunching up, so the yarn feels...........a little rustic. Also, the colour bits didn't quite line up the way I hoped - there's a fairly extensive section where the copper mixed with the darker browns so there's a fair bit of marling. The second ply turned out to be so long that both the extra bobbins on the dark end went onto the first ply and I still had some left over to bracelet ply. BUT as a whole I think it looks good.

Counted twice (was surprised) so the round count should be correct.

289 rounds x 2.5m = 722.5m (!)
160.4g, though this includes ties

The grist is nuts:

722.5m / 160.4g = 450.44m/100g

By WPI it should be around fingering weight after finishing, so the length is terribly mysterious and I'm genuinely worried I won't get to the dark brown bits in the knitting, so uh...debating if I might want to go up a needle size just to use more of this yarn. Or, to spend some of it in a knitted sample. I'll have to see how much it shrinks in washing; it feels weird to be praying that it shrinks much more than expected. If the shrink % is the same as the first skein's, it'll come down to 602m (375.312m/100g) after finishing, which is still like, 200m longer than I strictly need. I suppose I shouldn't have added in the extra orange without taking anything out? Since I want more of the dark end I suppose one option is to gradient dark to light rather than light to dark, but I dooooo want it more bottom-heavy since that's the part of the pattern that's more visible when worn.

I guess since I can roughly guess the length of yarn there is by counting the rounds, I could try and reduce it to around a safe amount, around 450-500m? And align this to be in the middle-ish of the gradient so I can grab all the colours and still have some left over in case it somehow isn't enough.

Still, the grist is rather a lot better than I might've expected. Even though the yarn weight kinda looks similar to the yarn weight of the MC before washing, it's a lot higher. I think it might be a little underplied, but it might tighten up as it shrinks? I was a little bit pressed to finish it because of bedtime, so. It looks like it has a lower angle of ply twist than the MC, but in photos the pre-washed MC does seem to have a lower angle than it currently does so it might just work out. Didn't manage to match the grist of the first yarn (and it has more breaks and bunched up bits than I'd like), but it'll probably be fine and it's also nice and squishy. Can't wait to get it washed up.

Finished the second single...or at least, as much of it as I could manage. There was still a tuft left before it started collapsing off the edge and I decided to stop. It probably wasn't as optimally packed. Total weight minus bobbin weight is 77g, slightly less than the other. I considered spinning up the remaining tufts (6.1g after removing the especially neppy bits, split 2.7g + 3.4g) to add to the ends in plying...but didn't really have the time, and I really don't think I'll even need that for the main shawl, so...any reason to do it would just be to make it look a little nicer in the skein. It would delay my plying by a day or two though, so I feel like it's not really thaaaaat necessary...I mean I guess I could just do it, it's a Tuesday anyway and I'm not going to have as much time at night to do anything else and I'd still like to draw. Or I could just use the fresh singles in plying anyway. Sigh.

Anyway, right after I finished that last section I also figured I wouldn't have time to settle in and do anything else (that is, draw) so I rewound the bobbin right away. Took about an hour. The gradient definitely looks a little shifted compared to the other bobbin, which was the intention. I wonder how it'll look. At this point there's about 154.7g between both bobbins...it should definitely be enough length to complete the shawl so I'm not terribly worried. If anything, a little uncertain if I'll get enough of the dark end in the colourwork, so I guess I can afford to leave loose-ish floats for better stretch and anchor the floats diligently...

10/6/26

Nintendo Direct today; took the time to rewind the first bobbin. It took all of that time (50 mins) and then some, with some annoying snarls particularly during the overflow portions...but I'm glad I dealt with it then and not when I'm trying to ply it. It looks nice like this...this braid has been turning out very lustrous, almost metallic in parts, and if I thought the first yarn was shiny...I think this'll be beautiful when freshly plied. Makes me want to try spinning a silk blend and it's been terribly hard resisting that Fossil Fibers preorder...but anyway.

I also started on the second ply. Not too much, since I started late due to the Nintendo Direct. It's been bothering me that spinning this takes several hours out of my time per night and I want to draw/have to prepare for the weekend, so I think I might go slower on this, or at least not force myself to sit through an entire 20g if I don't feel I'll have the time for anything else, much as I'm antsy about seeing it done. I don't anticipate having the time or energy to do the plying on Saturday and winding on Sunday, anyway.

I really want to wind up the first ball so I can get familiar with using the swift/see if it'll work out fine, but I'm having such a nice time squishing it and also don't want to compress it before I'm ready to start working with it...I suppose ideally I should wind both balls at the same time so I don't have to fiddle with the swift setup twice.

9/6/26

Finished first ply - squeezed as long a single as I could manage onto the bobbin, but it started overflowing before I could finish the last tuft. Total weight minus bobbin weight (started labelling them) is 77.7g. The Colombian Roast bits didn't have a lot of colour variation at all and were more neppy, which I guess is pretty much what I expected...thought about adding in some orange but it was a bit annoying to spin to begin with so I didn't want to complicate it further.

I think in order to preserve the expected alignment of colour changes, I'll need to rewind the bobbins to ply from the lighter end. I'll probably wind them into balls in that case, since I don't have an efficient way to wind onto a different bobbin without applying some amount of twist? The ball winder does apply some twist, though... Otherwise it'll have to go onto a 6.1 bobbin because the overflow looks like it's going to catch on the lazy kate needle. I suppose if I'm patient I could work out something really stupid and wind it by hand.

8/6/26

Finished 3rd part of first ply. So far, for mixing in the orange, it seems to be ideal to take a narrow strip of orange and lay it in the middle of the top and draft normally (as normally as possible, anyway), which will cause a little blip of orange every time I pass through. For some bits I just went without adding the orange. My expectation is that it will be fine...debating if maybe the other ply shouldn't have any orange in it, since I won't be able to know how it works with the first ply.

I'm quite pleased with the Chestnut portion of the gradient - it has the most contrast with itself, with some very light areas and some very dark areas, which should give some visual interest.

Been picking out bits of neppy fibre so there's a bit of loss but I feel it's still an overall weight gain with the orange added. At 3 of 4 parts done, the bobbin is at just about normal full capacity, so there's still the chance that the last bit will involve a bit of actual bobbin chicken, though the last chunk is lighter than the bits I've been doing the past 3 days. The bobbin end looks very pretty though. I think on this schedule I'll be plying next Saturday, although since it's LIFC, I might return too late to finish the plying at a reasonable hour. I guess I'll see. I would hope to be able to finish plying on Sat and wind/wash on Sun. Few days to dry, so...maybe around next next Wednesday to Friday I can start knitting.

6/6/26

Starting on first ply. Not pre-separating the fibre but just roughly grabbing ~20g to do per day. Going to yolo the yarn weight; I'm removing little bits of the original fibre here and there where it feels too much of a pain to try and spin in. I'm not quite sure how the mixed bits are going to turn out when plied...I think it'll probably be less weird due to the slipped stitches in the pattern but I'm still a little worried. The braid itself has some variation in the colour but after spinning it really does even out, so while there's a little bit of hue shifting, there aren't any contrasting bits save for the bits where I combination drafted the orange. I expect after plying, even those will be less obvious, but I hope that the distribution of these bits will be...not too weird, since I'm adding them randomly. I do wish I could just spin this normally though, and it's tempting to just...do that...

The combination drafting is a pain because it's harder to estimate how much fibre I'm drafting, so the singles are turning out kind of uneven. Doing my best. I feel this might turn out a bit denser because the twist keeps getting stuck, but I'm overcompensating the other way by spinning thinner when I have control...so it's hard to say. Though...I feel it's ok if this one's a bit denser/thicker since it's the CC...so I'm trying to correct the thin bits. Man, it's so hard to tell how it's going to turn out. The only thing I have to go off is the amount of time I'm taking to spin...I know I spun faster when I was doing the FCK samples because of the density.

What's good is that the singles are contrasting enough with the MC yarn. I don't think I needed to worry about it; the Ginger part is probably contrasting enough with Mouse to be visible but I think it was still worth doing it the way I did it for the slightly more neutral tone.

5/6/26

Took the yarn in; I'll likely still let it hang in my room for a little bit but it's mostly dry now.

Remeasured length: 103cm x 2 = 2.06m. 228 rounds +- 1 round.
Final length: 469.68m.
I think it shrank way more than I thought it would (lost almost 100m...??), but this is still a very safe amount for the shawl!

Final grist: 318.8m/100g
It's definitely still a fair bit denser than millspun, but it's within expectations, and the length is a very conservative estimate anyway. Depending on how I measure it it might be 110cm rather than 103, which still puts it over 500m. It's not exactly bouncy, but has a bit of stretch to it.

Pre-wash I think it was closer to 25WPI, but now it's about 14WPI according to the spin card. Definitely has the irregularities of handspun, but it looks fairly even. I think it'll even out some more in the fabric.

With this information, I think I can start spinning the gradient now. I'll likely be working at the same pace (roughly one colour a day), so I'll be done in another week and a half I think, and then I can start knitting the shawl itself.

4/6/26

155.1g after the compacted tips were removed. Each half should be 77.5g. Need 75g each.

Accidentally removed the entire extra dark bit after intentional misalignment, divided into 2 to add to the main halves...but honestly if I'm adding in some more orange, maybe I should leave it out. I'm still keeping it because I want to have more dark brown, though...also I think I won't be adding a whole lot of orange. I'm thinking just combination drafting every now and then; I think the main braid itself is varied enough that it'll be interesting on its own and if I add much more I'm not going to get to use much of the darkest colour in knit. The remainder of the orange I'll spin for a shawl cuff.

71.0 + 5.5, got 76.3g
Has the extra dark bunch attached to the dark end.
I think this is the one with less Ginger.

70.9 + 7.1, got 77.8g
Has the extra dark bunch attached to the light end.

Both plies are above 75g so I won't sweat the details, but the lighter one should have a little more bright orange in it to make up the extra weight. I think I'll start this one first. I'm not sure how I'll blend in the orange, but I'm thinking that I'll just use it to emphasize the bits in the braid that are lighter...typically these get averaged out with the rest of the colour due to how the fibres are pulled so a bit of intention should get closer the effect I want. In testing the look of combined drafting with the Duck Hunt braid (plyback test) it has a nice mottled/heathered look, so I think it'll look nice and the 2-ply should prevent it from being extremely noticeable.

To make up for the extra weight being added...I don't know, actually. Logically I should remove a bit of the fibre on purpose in order to not exceed the target weight by too much. Maybe I can afford to be a bit more picky about bits of fibre that are a little harder to spin smoothly (compacted bits, slubby bits). Or maybe I can remove fibre equivalent to the amount being added and put it towards the shawl cuff.

Excited to start...

2/6/26

Ran into some unexpected issues with the DIY niddy noddy - mainly that the horizontal pipes did not fit the way I hoped they would (would not go through the pipe connector). I have a few options to fix this:

1. Just buy new pipes to spec - don't really want to spend more money. It's cheap but I want to see if I can DIY a solution first since it increases the amount of storage I need.
2. Heat the connector, freeze the pipes to fit them in - this might work, since just heating the connector made the pipe go in a little more easily. This would make the connection permanent though, and I forsee difficulties getting the yarn off if I can't remove the horizontal pipe when I want.
3. Cut the horizontal pipes in half so they're attached separately on each end - this seems to be the best solution since it lets me detach them easily without having to get new supplies...but then...I don't know how I'd cut the pipe. I imagine I'd need to get a saw or something, which is, again, buying stuff that needs to be stored somewhere. I could attempt to try and cut it with perseverance and a less optimal cutting tool but I don't think I have a cutting tool that works for this purpose in the first place. If I could find a saw in Daiso I imagine it'd be cheaper than the ~$10 I'd be paying to get new pipes though, so I'll have a look.

(Update) Decided that I would get less use out of a saw than more pipes (because the random PVC pipe I've had in a drawer has been more useful than I would've expected) so I decided to buy pipes. Welp.

Well, this can't stop me from trying regardless, so I used those knitting needles that I almost never use as knitting needles as horizontal bars. This was a little bit iffy because there's a lot of tension under the yarn and I could see them bending - was very worried they'd snap halfway, but thankfully they held until I was done. I'll say...this would've taken a LOT more rounds if I'd been using the smaller niddy noddy. It still took a while but not like 5 hours.

After getting it off the niddy noddy I was was immediately struck by the subtle sheen...it was very nice. I thought I might've overplied it quite a lot but actually, it was only very slightly overplied (as desired). The difference in colour across the gradient is more apparent now laid out this way. Once it's knitted it'll probably be difficult to see unless the opposite ends are brought together though.

I'll still need to recount since I might've messed up a couple of times before I started counting out loud, and of course re-measure after washing, but...

229 rounds x 2.46m = 563.34m

Any shrinkage can't possibly reduce this below a safe amount for knitting the shawl (most probably won't go below 500m), so...yay! Dry weight including yarn ties is...147.1g. Sample grist for 2-ply Polwarth fingering is 384-387g/100g, so expected quantity of fingering weight is ~569m for 147g. That's.............astonishingly close to what I made. 1% difference in length. Whoa. Of course, it appears to be finer than fingering weight and it'll likely shrink after washing but dang. I feel like I've broken a curse or something...

Very very pleased with this yarn.

--

Washed, now letting it dry, which will take a few days probably. Snapping was kind of difficult because of how long each round is, but it's within my physical reach. I think I'll leave it downstairs to dry faster so I can get full measurements, although technically, I can already start on the next braid because it'll certainly be enough yarn. Immediately post-wash it appears to be ~14WPI based on spin card, which is great. I'm not fully certain it's small enough for the swift's max diameter but I'll deal with that later...

Ply 2 done, also hilariously large although I didn't really need to chicken since I knew roughly how large it was going to be. Feels like it's a little compacted and I forget that I can steam them in the bathroom...but anyway, at least this one's done. I think the second ply has more thin spots, but I'm hoping it gets evened out in the ply, which I'll do tomorrow. It'll probably take forever, considering how much yarn there is...honestly I'm happy as long as I get it roughly consistently fingering/light fingering weight and with enough length.

--

Done with the plying - took several hours and had a bit of a mishap when it got to bracelet plying (it coiled badly and took a while to fix). The result looks pretty good though. Definitely some bumpy parts but I feel most of it is consistent. The gradient is subtle but visible from the side of the bobbin...only because I know it's there, though. I didn't see any bits where I thought there was a colour change happening so I think the blending is fine. Noted that the singles were sometimes visibly different but somehow didn't look marled when plied. Waiting for the pipe parts to come in so it might be a couple of days before I can wrap this up for washing. Still a little concerned there's not enough contrast between this and the gradient braid, honestly...and also been thinking about how I'd blend the orange bits in, and thinking that maybe I'll end up using very little of it because I don't want to mess up the gradient accidentally. I don't know yet. Have to wait and see how much yarn I'm getting out of what I spun, and then make up for any insufficiencies...

The bobbin with yarn weighs 248.6g, an empty bobbin weighs 101.6g. Not exact measurement but this should hold around 147g of yarn, which appears to be around 25WPI with random measurements. I expect it to puff up a little after washing. I was also worried Polwarth might not be universally skin friendly enough but it feels very soft. Not as airy as the Fun House 3-ply and didn't take up the whole bobbin but it's a 2-ply anyway so it's kind of expected probably. Praying for between 450-500m of yarn; judging by project pages it's probably enough.

28/5/26

First part of ply 2 done. The colour difference with the last part of ply 1 is actually quite noticeable. I feel like I'm losing consistency, but visually on the bobbin it doesn't look far off from the first bobbin. I think it's sloppy though and some of it might be denser/more twisted than intended. Debating if I want to rewind both bobbins before plying...I don't have a good way of doing this, so maybe I'll try plying across the room to even out the twist. Mostly bothered by that this prep really makes my pinching fingers hurt. I guess at least after I'm done with this bobbin and plying I'll need to take a break for a few days to finish it...

Finished ply 1 and split out the fibre for ply 2 into bags, to start spinning tomorrow.

Ply 1 was definitely not that evenly blended - saw some spots that were definitely lighter than others, but overall I think it won't be a problem after plying. It's hard to see the gradient from the bobbin ends, but it's there if I look for it, so I think it's at the right degree of lightness. Also, it all fit onto a Nano bobbin with a little space to spare, so I can probably spin the rest of the singles for this project on my Nano. I'm unsure if the length will be enough - I'm quite sure it will be, since that's what I calculated with a wide buffer - but just in case (there's an estimated 70g of yarn on this bobbin instead of the 75g I thought it would have), I'll finish this yarn before I do the second, in case I need to adjust the way I'm spinning and/or spin up some more of the Mouse to make enough yarn.

Since I've had trouble winding less yarn on my niddy noddy, decided to get a bigger one...but following the advice of other spinners, making it out of PVC pipe and connectors. New one should be longer and have wider arms, extending at least 40cm per loop (>60cm vertical, so each loop is at least 2.4m)...since the pipe is removable I think it should also be easier to get the yarn off. Still not looking forward to winding >400m of fingering weight yarn and having to ball it up afterwards, but it should at least be more manageable than on the smaller niddy noddy. Also caved and got a swift finally - I really hope this saves me some time and energy because it takes forever to wind yarn and my arms hurt so bad afterwards. Going to yolo the "where am I going to set it up" part because there's technically enough air space for it to turn around in...

22/5/26

Done part 1 of ply 1. It's very hard to see if there's any colour difference between this and the 1:1 (I probably won't see it until the next part, or even until it's knitted), but that's OK. Went with the carder but not the diz and it kind of went faster, though I'm not counting the amount of time I spent fluffing up the wool while waiting for work assets to build. Also, doing it on my Nano. Might require bobbin chicken, but it seems a lot more consistently spun than my 6.1 singles to me, at least where it drafted consistently...definitely a bit neppy from the prep but not too awful. This is the shortest section I think so there'll be more to do on other days...

21/5/26

Finished knitting both samples. The mixed sample isn't extremely evenly-blended; it's possible to see bands of parts where either Mouse or Mist is a little more dominant. The end where I buffered with some Mouse is just slightly darker. I do have to look for the colours to notice, though, and the bigger issue is consistency which is why I want to spin on my Nano...
The colours are quite hard to distinguish but I do still feel like the mix is juuuuust slightly better for at least the first half or so of the colour progression. It would be better to go with more Mist in the first quarter. There's 0 chance that the plies lined up perfectly but I can't see any marling so I don't have to worry too much about it, but both plies will need to be blended. I also don't want the background to be very obviously gradiented nor clearly a different colour in a different section, so this is going to be a little bit of a troublesome blend, but...

For each ply, going:

• 2:1 Mist/Mouse (12.375g / 6.18g)
• 1:1 Mist/Mouse (9.375g / 9.375g)
• 1:2 Mist/Mouse (6.18g / 12.375g)
• All Mouse (18.75g)
  Each section is 18.75g. I'll need to tweak each one so that there's a bit of a transitional area where the colours technically marl, to introduce a bit of blending between plies.

Ply 1:

• 2:1 Mist/Mouse (8g / 4g)
• 1:1 Mist/Mouse (10g / 10g)
• 1:2 Mist/Mouse (6g / 12g)
• All Mouse (25g)

Ply 2:

• 2:1 Mist/Mouse (14g / 7g)
• 1:1 Mist/Mouse (10g / 10g)
• 1:2 Mist/Mouse (6g / 12g)
• All Mouse (16g)

54g of Mist, 96g of Mouse.

I think each section of each ply is enough of a volume to do in a day, but the fibre prep will add a fair amount of time onto that. All in all, probably about a week and a half's work maybe...it would help if I could prep all the fibre first and just spin but I'm not sure where I'd store it.

20/5/26

Encountering a problem, which is that I actually like the 50/50 blend of Mouse/Mist. The knitted sample of Mouse came out close to the base fibre colour even though it looks a little lighter as a yarn. A little up in the air if I prefer Mouse/Mist to plain Mist, but I think Mouse/Mist would be my pick out of the two although I wouldn't mind 100% Mist. Mouse reads as a light tan/brown, 50/50 reads as a warm off-white/grey.

Unfortunately I don't have enough Mist left for more experimentation before it gets impossible to put together enough Mist for the full spin. I might have to work this out on the fly. I'm thinking of maybe trying to roll the fibre off the handcards horizontally instead of dizzing because it's the dizzing part that drafts them out unevenly...I mean, I could still painstakingly blend everything the same way...it's just that getting 10g of fibre last night took ages, and I need 150g...the alternative is to just buy another braid of Mist and do 100% Mist. But I don't wanna spend more money and I do like the blended shade. One option is to do a single ply of each I suppose, but I think it just looks better blended uniformly especially since the handspun inconsistency makes the stitches look uneven. I might just have to do this the hard way...

I do still think the colour difference isn't super strong though - the bits of the 50/50 where I started with 100% Mouse are difficult to tell apart (in the ball at least; I don't know how it'll look knitted up) so transitioning into 100% Mouse is still an option. Maybe there's an argument here for doing the singles on the Nano. Joining multiple bobbins in plying wouldn't be hard I would think...the gradient would probably have to be all done at once though, or I'd have to reverse direction for the second bobbin to join properly/rewind one of the bobbins to get at the inner end.

Update: apparently Tarndie's sold out of Mist tops, so that's not even an option. Welp!

18/5/26

Fibre has arrived - took it out to touch and see.

180g Mouse - expected 170g
155g gradient - expected 141g
62g small gradient - expected 56g

Mouse is...a bit darker and more saturated than I expected. I don't think this is the neutral I was going for, but I did have some contingency plans in case it didn't come out the way I hoped. I think Tarndie Mist makes a better pair with this gradient, actually. Since I have so much of Mouse now, I'll still try to make use of as much of it as possible, but I'll likely blend it with Mist to lighten it up. 1 ply of each could work but I'm not sure if that's too noisy; I might just do the handcards thing so they're more evenly blended. That said, I think it's a nice colour for subtlety. I'm just mostly worried the lighter end of the gradient will lose contrast, and it doesn't really mesh with the yellower part of the gradient since it tends redder.
Since I do a very rough conversion to grams when I think in ounces, and Ginny tends to be very generous, I ended up with rather a lot more than I thought I'd have. Hmm...I might even have close to 100g left over after blending with Mist. I guess I can make a shawl cuff with the remainder.

The gradient itself is very pretty. The Copper Penny bit is such a nice colour. I think it'll be dark enough for the colourwork. I was expecting to have about 125g and expecting to need 150g for the entire CC, so this is actually enough even without the addition of the orange.

And as for the tiny little gradient - a little more subtle of a brightness change than I was hoping but it's fine. Plan was to use about half of it to make 6oz for the CC, but I can afford to use less of it for a more subtle look I think.

Excited to start. Currently, the plan is--

• Sampling with Mouse - I want to make sure I'm spinning a fingering weight on my 6.1, and also to check the colour of the final yarn, so knitted sample required. I think I can spare about 1oz for this since I only really need about 5oz, so about 25g. I should maybe test the blended colour with Mist as well, but since I have less of Mist, I wanna say at most 10g of Mist...maybe 5g...
• Spin Mouse & Mist - Background first, since it's less complex, and it's been a while since I last spun so I need a bit of a refresher/practice to get a stable yarn weight. Doing 150g.
• Spin gradient - At this point I should be warmed up.
• Knit - For better or worse. The project work is for ME but I hope they will get to receive it and I hope they like it.

Sampling...

• 5g Mouse
• 2.5g Mouse + 2.5g Mist

Post-sampling (just spun, not yet knit)...both skeins don't look very different from each other. There's enough of a visual difference that I can tell which one is which without any labels, but not significantly enough to convince me to do the fibre prep - it takes a long time to get the fibre ready and gets kind of inconsistent with the drafting, so I'm leaning towards just doing a lot of fluffing and sticking to the one colour. Or at least something that doesn't require a whole lot of prep. I do still think Mist is a better match for the start of the braid, but maybe it isn't worth trying to integrate it. As it is, it should be contrasty enough for the colourwork to be visible either way.

...I actually wish I could do the singles on my Nano. It feels more consistent than the 6.1, probably because I have more experience with it (and also because the switch just works instead of me having to tap the foot pedal several times to stop). Nothing's stopping me from trying regardless, but since I went through the trouble of getting the 6.1, I would like to get used to it too...

Incidentally, wildly inconsistent spinning but the resultant yarns post-washing:

• (Mouse + Mist) 25 rounds x 38cm x 2, 6.5g = 292m/100g
• (Mouse) 23 rounds x 38cm x 2, 5.2g = 336m/100g (intentionally spun finer)
  Not anywhere near a fingering weight grist. They did fluff up somewhat after washing, and prior to that the loop half-length was about 44cm...that comes to 86% of the pre-wash length, which is a 14% loss. Pattern calls for 384m at minimum, with 10% extra built in it's 422.4m. At the grist of the second sample (336m/100g), I would need 422.4/336 * 100 = 125g. Pre-washing I would also be expecting to have 422.4/86 * 100 = 491m. With the weights of the fibre I have on hand it should be quite doable. Definitely wish I could get a higher grist out of this but since the weight isn't so much of an issue with this project...I think it's just important to be as consistent as possible.

30/4/26

It took a while, but Ginny sent me some pictures aaaaaaaaaaaa........there's only one photo of the relevant gradients since it's an easier one to do (the custom sky gradient I asked for was a little more involved) but it's so pretty.

I was sort of expecting Ginger/Copper Penny/Chestnut to have a bit more of a brightness gradient, but actually it's pretty nice that it mainly looks like a hue shift - has a bit more subtleness. I'll be putting in bits of the orange anyway, so the starting end should turn out brighter (and a little less yellow, though I suppose that gives the orange a bit of character). Since the brightness doesn't change a whole lot I think it makes sense for me to just get the same colour throughout for the background.

Looking at Ravelry I was getting doubts about Mouse being light enough to contrast, but remembered I have quite a fair bit of lighter Polwarth that I can easily blend in to make the Mouse lighter if I need to. Or, if I decide that undyed is ideal, I have a decent amount of it that I can blend Mouse/Tarndie Mist into to make the required amount of yarn - either way I should have enough Polwarth to deal with the background.

18/3/26

Even as I start having doubts about whether I should do this...I'm worried about the shipping situation. It might get expensive to order from the US, so I'm thinking it might be a good idea to push things up and order whatever fibre I foresee needing sooner. So I plied the 6.1 bobbins, and spun up 4.3g each of Tarndie Mist and FCK Specter and plied them together. The 6.1 stuff is resting, but I wanted to see how the Mist and Specter ply will look like knitted up. I need to weigh again later, because things feel a little odd.

First thing, I spun both the Mist and Specter plies the same way I did the original FCK sample singles for Polwarth. I kept track of the target grist, did some plybacks that looked great, tried to keep the twist loose without falling apart (although the Specter side did fall apart a little when plying the extra singles on itself). It's still drying but comes to roughly 34 x 89cm. That comes to 351.86m per 100g. Which, somehow, is higher than my initial spinning sample by about 100m even if I drastically reduce the length of a round for my calculation for that sample. How...?? I thought maybe it's because the first sample is finer, but honestly they're pretty similar. If there's anything at all that might've affected it, it's maybe that most of the current sample used the tail end of the Polwarth braid which is a little more felted/compacted but I'm unsure if that's a big factor. It's maybe also possible that for whatever reason, the Mist top spun more densely. Honestly, even though I tried to work towards a particular amount of twist in this new sample, there are bits of the original that I think look really nice. Perhaps I should be going for a higher singles twist than what I was doing. And also, the yarn weight is finer than what I'd comfortably call a normal fingering weight, so...I don't know how a fingering weight yarn manages to be a fingering weight.

Also, I'm worried about the 6.1 bobbins because they're SO uneven. Some bits of the singles were really thick and it was drifting apart in some points though I put it together in the plying, hopefully will remain stable in the yarn. 32 rounds of 88cm x 2 unwashed = 56.32m in 21.5g (this includes a short length of yarn used to tie the hank). Comes to 261.95m per 100g. Somehow, this is about 13WPI unwashed. (Well, depending on where I take the measurement, it goes down to 10WPI.) It's definitely not fingering weight, but for all that effort I do wish it turned out longer. Maybe I'm just not quite used to the 6.1 yet.

I suppose it's fortunate that the weight of the finished shawl isn't particularly crucial. It can be a bit weighty without causing issues (thinking about this as I work on my Drachenfels which is Heavy), and no matter how I slice it I should end up with enough fibre to do the project with some left over, so what's most important right now is whether I think it looks good with the marling. And then, whether I think it's wise to commit to such a project...I mean, I guess whether or not I end up giving it, it would be nice to do a spin to knit and it's a pattern that I've wanted to knit anyway.

It's just a little frustrating that I tried to control the variables and it still ended up feeling like nothing really changed; it feels entirely random. On some level I was afraid this would happen and anticipated it but it's still kind of disappointing, I guess? Practice is definitely a big part of it, but I wish I had a sample of what I'd be trying to spin. Like, one that is real and not a simulation of what I think it should look like...I don't think it's even a worsted vs woollen problem, it's a drafting problem. I have a good feeling about the Fun House fractal I'm also working on, but I think it will be reliant on me being able to spin the other two singles consistently...

15/3/26

As a little update on the sample which is no longer a useful sample - finished spinning that little bit from the fold. Still difficult. Plying is next...

Thinking I'll use the Fun House fractal as a reference here - if I did manage to make it longer, I can get a grist estimate out of it, and then I'd be able to spin my default yarn and get the required length. I'll probably do a better/more consistent sample again though...especially if the sample does turn out to be pretty long.

8/3/26 - Started

Starting by beginning to spin a sample yarn. I don't have the fibre yet, I want to make sure I know how much I need/whether I can get the yarn I want before I buy. Sampling using 10g of Tarndie Polwarth (cream) on the 6.1 since I will be spinning this on the 6.1.

...Well, I attempted to meet my handmade sample's standard...and the plan in my head was to spin from the fold...but it was difficult. I thought I'd try to do a 20 degree spin angle to reduce the yarn density, but I couldn't get it consistent - the thickness was inconsistent, the yarn kept drifting apart. I wonder if the 20 degree angle is too shallow? 30 is my optimum I think. Anyway, it was frustrating to try and get both the drafting quantity plus angle correct (there might have been something in there about learning how fast the 6.1 goes too), and the folded fibre kept getting bunched up as I was trying to fix things, so eventually when I needed entertainment I rolled up one staple length into a rolag (as fluffy as I could get it with my hands) and spun that.

I think it was fun...well, when the rolag was easy to draft. I think I was starting to understand the mechanics of long draw, unsupported, even. But it will need more practice and possibly hand carders to get it evenly carded. The yarn was still drifting apart and one time when I tried to pull the single off the bobbin it broke like 3 times. I don't think this 10g will be a useful sample for anything (I'll still finish a 20g sample to see how much length I get out of it) but I guess it's a learning experience...even though I didn't intend to spin this shawl woollen. I should probably try again with my default twist angle but from the fold and see how much yarn I can get out of that...honestly as long as I can get about 400m out of 100g I'll be happy.

I guess I will put down my Obsidian logs as well...

6/4/26 - Finished

Remainder:

• Kelpie 69.1g
• White 77.7g
• Pewter 14.5g

Weighs 412g in total.

I've never worn shawls before so I spent a while trying to figure out how to wrap it and keep it in place with varying amounts of success. There's a lot of yarn left, so I'd like to make a cuff to hold it in place, then I'll decide what to do with the rest...it's a not insignificant amount of yarn and discontinued, so...hmmm. 

3/4/26 - Finished up to first solid line of edging

Trying to do at least 2 rows a day. Very close to finishing, so trying to have it done between this to next week...then I can move on to focus on the Bouquet Blanket, which I need to finish by sometime in May.

Checked weights and the last colour C ridge took 3.8g, and I have 26.5g left to do 3 more ridges, so I think it's safe to say I have a safe amount of yarn left to continue working in Pewter. I might've been able to do the full number of ridges in the previous section, but then I'd really be doing yarn chicken because I'm knitting quite tightly at this point. The dots are less vertically spaced than in the sample pictures as a result, but honestly...whatever. It's a huge shawl as it is already LOL.

29/03/26 - Finished ridges up to before edging

Need to get this done before I get to knitting the Road Trip Shawl and my cardigan. I have some calculations somewhere...I keep taking breaks while working on this so I forget what I was doing...also the Pewter ball was getting loose and crushed by whatever I was putting on top of it so I re-balled it.

Anyway, the next section is the edging. Colour B is white, colour C is grey (Pewter).

Check if there's a chickenable amount of colour C before row 9 of the edging. If not, then the next colour C will need to be swapped out.

If not enough colour C:

• Row 9: colour B is white, colour C is Kelpie
• Row 21: colour B is Pewter, colour C is white
• Row 25: colour B is Kelpie, colour C is white
• Bind off in Kelpie

If enough colour C:

• Row 21: colour B is white, colour C is Kelpie
• Bind off in white

Both Kelpie and white should have enough remaining for the bind-off.

2/3/26

EEW 6.1 arrived, so I plied the BFL yesterday and got it washed today. Working with the 6.1 was fun (aside from the electric shocks) and it plied up beautifully I think - even though I was worried about the singles being spun unevenly, the yarn itself didn't vary too much in thickness. One bobbin was dramatically shorter, so I made a plying bracelet with the longer of the remaining bobbins, and when that ran out, I chain plied the last (very short) bit of the last bobbin so it's maximum 3ply throughout. I like the gradient and the bits where the plies are different colours. I think I'd really enjoy fractal spinning, so I definitely want to figure out how I can use that yarn.

Before washing, about 10-11 WPI. After washing...well, it hasn't dried, but still about the same. That puts it at between worsted and DK weight, leaning towards the latter.

Length about 95 loops of 178cm (also after washing). Due to using the niddy noddy it was a lot more tidy this time, although because it doesn't have a lot of horizontal width, I had to stack the wraps. Total length calculated to be about 169.1 metres in 113g, likely a little (just slightly) longer. It's pretty dense, unsurprisingly. Mill-spun BFL DK weight is around maybe 225 metres (246 yards) per 100g? I liked the colour changes (even though every time I look at this fibre I wish I got it on a whiter base) as I worked with it, but it sheds like crazy. I didn't even rest this on my table as I was winding it on my niddy noddy and it left some extra tiny fibres. Hoping that washing it got rid of most of the loose fibres, or I'll be suffering through the knitting too.

That said, I don't know what I'd make with it - I thought maybe some kind of amigurumi but I don't know what yet, and I'll have to try and get in most of the colour changes. Whale shark again is an option but 1. I've already made two, 2. it doesn't appear to use enough of the yarn to be worth it, 3. gonna have to think on what yarn I'd be using for the contrast colour there.

I could make a necktie - I have a couple bookmarked:

1. Tsubaki Cotton Necktie
2. Okehampton Tie

20/2/26

18.5 micron Merino, 3-ply: 31 wraps
Targhee, 3-ply: 59 wraps

14/2/26

1 round is about 189cm (can't get an accurate measure because my measuring tape isn't long enough but yeah). Better to estimate it a little shorter than longer.

Polwarth, 2-ply: 49 wraps = 92.61m in 19.0g / 487m per 100g
20cm stretches to 22cm, so ratio is 0.91.
Polwarth, 3-ply: a little less than 54 wraps = 102.06m in 31.8g / 321m per 100g
Mixed 3-ply: 26 wraps = 49.14m in 29.2g / 168m per 100g

13/2/26

Finished the 3rd part of the BFL gradient. Realised partway through that the reason I didn't feel too enthusiastic about it (apart from the inconsistent drafting due to predrafting unevenly) was that it felt kind of like the blended fibre that I learnt to spin on...

This section of the gradient came out a fair bit more inconsistently and overspun than the other two because I was kind of rushing it. Hopefully it still has a decent amount of length to make up the gradient, though...

12/2/26

Some updates...

• Did the mixed spin + plied it
• Used the remaining singles (all Polwarth) to make a short 4-ply section
• Plied the 18.5 micron Merino
• Washed all of the 3-ply yarns and the 2-ply Polwarth (and the 4-ply bit)
• Spun 2 sections of the BFL gradient, working on the 3rd

As it doesn't seem like the niddy noddy will arrive in time for me to use it to prepare hanks for washing (won't dry in time, probably) I wound up and washed some of the yarns. It'll likely still arrive by Saturday and I'll use it to get a proper measure of the yarns before I ball them up. It's a lot of yarn and was really tiring to wind with my setup so I didn't want to also go through the 2-ply yarns...I think I'd like to relax a bit and play games too, so I don't think I'll bring the other 2-ply yarns along.

The 4-ply hasn't fully dried yet but just for fun I checked its length and weight...
47cm x 4 = 188cm, 1.5g approximately.

5/2/26

Finished 10g section. This one felt really difficult - kept overtwisting even though I felt it wasn't twisted enough sometimes, lots of spots where it was difficult to draft. Switched back to short forward for a little bit because I found it easier to manage the twist that way. I think excessively fine wool has its own set of problems, which is that it compacts/pills really easily...it's not sticky like Targhee (I think) but feels sensitive to fibres getting crossed and whatnot. Lately I've been thinking Polwarth has the ideal balance of being soft and silky but also not finicky to spin, so if there's anything that I want to be perfect I imagine I'd like it dyed on Polwarth.

Split the BFL gradient braid - I was a bit nervous about it, and kind of worried that I wouldn't be able to split it into 3 sections evenly and maybe I should just do the 2-ply...but I really wanted to see the marling between the plies so I went with it. Couldn't fit it on my more accurate scale so I used the cooking scale. First split into halves - 57g and 58g. Split one into 2/3 and 1/3 sections: 38g and 19g. ...Ok, that's pretty cool. Split the next one. 38g and 20g. Weighed each section again - all 38g. Incredible split, and all I did was split it along a vertical break in the top. The mini braids are very cute. Excited to see the colour changes as I work them...

The only issue is that the 1/3 + 1/3 section isn't quite willing to stick together - I drafted the tips out a bit to see if it'd work and it fluffed up rather nicely, so I think I'll try and uncompact + predraft these ones before working with it. BFL feels coarse compared to what I've been working with lately but maybe I'll enjoy it...the gradient itself feels like it's less defined than I'd like. I thought I'd try spinning from the fold for this to try and make the colour separations more defined, but actually...I don't think it'll work like I thought it would because it's not a blended top, so I guess I'll do it normally.

I'll also need to make sure I only do 2 of these sections first because I haven't got enough bobbins. I still wanted to do a mixed 3-ply spin of all the semisolids, and I need 3 + 1 bobbins to finish that. And then I'd need my EEW 6.1 to arrive before I can ply the entire gradient...

2/2/26

Finished second 20g section, last part was kind of bumpy because of the separated bits.

1/2/26 - Update

Didn't keep a close log on what I'd been doing recently, but at this point, I've finished plying and balling up the Targhee, as well as finished spinning/plying the Falkland Merino. Started on the 18.5 micron Merino. All still continuous backward drafting.

On the Targhee - it was weirdly "sticky" when plying, in the sense that the singles coming from the bobbins kept sticking to each other if they touched accidentally. I also had some issues with the 3-ply bunching up, although this only happened towards the end of the 3-ply and I don't know what was causing it. 

On the Falkland - I noticed that the areas with more dye seemed to draft somewhat unevenly - it'd often come out in small bunches and/or be a little bit more compacted. Unsure if this is just what happens to dyed wool, but I didn't really notice it happening with the previous wools. In any case, the plying went more smoothly than the Targhee did, and the singles didn't want to stick to each other in the same way.

On the 18.5 micron Merino - it feels...kind of spongy to draft. Unsure how to describe it. The Polwarth in comparison was smooth like butter, and the Corriedale is toothy. I don't dislike it but I feel a little nervous about whether I'm in control because I can't feel the friction as keenly. I'm also unsure if it's just me but I finished spinning a 20g section more quickly than I expected. Drafting across the top was easy, maybe I've figured out how that works.

At the moment, I'm leaning heavily towards using Polwarth. The Merino is nice and soft, but I feel I enjoyed the experience of spinning the Polwarth most. I'll definitely wait until I'm done with the washing and swatching before I decide, though. As for the BFL - I don't expect to be going with this for the project, not that I won't be spinning it up regardless. I think I'd like to wait until my EEW 6.1 is in before I ply that, though. I've also gone and ordered a niddy noddy from Taobao as the cheapest/probably fastest option, because Twin said it's probably better if I want to have it by CNY, and I want to make sure all my yarns are washed and ready to knit before I go and potate in a hotel in Batam this holiday.

Thinking maybe I need a control card that can go finer than what's on the EEW card, because I always seem to be spinning a hair thinner than 40WPI...there are a bunch of worsted/aran weight cardigan/sweater projects I want to do though...

27/03/26 - Plied

Plied up the bobbins, forgot to take a photo before starting. I'm actually unsure which one was the longest...I THINK it was the short colour changes one but not sure. It ended up taking a really long time because I attempted to wind a plying ball instead of the usual plying bracelet and that got badly tangled, to the point where I had to remove a couple of little bits that got stuck together, and because of the fiddling, one of the singles drifted apart, etc. and I belatedly realised that I'd put one of the singles in the wrong slot of the plying tool, which I guess is why it wasn't plying as neatly as it usually does, though at least it doesn't seem to show too badly? I hope?

So in essence it was really fraught even though I enjoyed watching the colour changes happen. I really wanted to get as much 3-ply as I could out of it so after one ran out I doubled one single over and when that ran out I chain plied the rest, which was awkward and badly done but still a 3-ply nonetheless.

What surprised me is that the entire yarn occupied almost all of the bobbin. The BFL braid in contrast still had a fair amount of space left. Given there's not much variance in weight - the BFL weighs more, in fact - I can say there's a good deal more air in this spin, but I don't know how much variance in length there is yet. It certainly feels squishy though...I haven't done a WPI check yet, but somehow I feel it might come out thicker than a DK weight even though I thought I was going excessively fine in the singles. Will see when I wind it up...which is also when I get to see the full range of colour changes so I'm excited.

Update:

Sooo got this wound up and measured, still dry so it might shrink post-finishing and also possibly fluff up a bit.

Numbers:
153 wraps x 84cm x 2 = 257.04m
11-13 wpi, dk to sport weight
110g based on initial fibre weight, but somehow is 113g in the hank (with just a bit of cotton to tie it)
I will re-measure post-finishing and calculate the grist then. Since it's heavier than 100g, it's fallen a little short of the 250g/100m I was aiming for, but I did see that the singles were denser than the sample so it's not surprising.

It took forever to wind, but the colour changes were quite trippy. I think it'd make a fun scarf...might also be nice to work up together with a white yarn in a 2-colour pattern. It's even long enough to make an ABS kerchief if I so desire (which is my ballpark measurement for a skein of DK yarn...). 

Most importantly, though...the length! 🎉 It's not commercial yarn density, but it's so much longer than the BFL. I think BFL tends to be denser, in any case, but not by as much as I made it...anyway, this came pretty close to a commercial DK weight. It's not remotely close to worsted grist, either, so I think it will behave like a heavy DK weight. It's so squishy in the hank, too. Love rubbing my face on it. And pretty consistent as far as overall width goes...the twist is a little messy because of my struggles with plying, but I expect it to even out a bit in finishing. I'm just really relieved/happy that the grist did get better and my efforts were worth something.

I have washed it and it's now drying. The water seemed...dirty? Well, it seemed darker, so it's possible that the dye ran a little, but I don't see any difference in the colour so it's probably fine.

26/03/26 - 3rd bobbin done

Did the rest of the last bobbin using the diz-off-the-carder method. I think the only problems were neps (I tried not to force myself to use the bits that looked potentially neppy) and slightly inconsistent drafting while dizzing the top...and I think maybe a fair bit of this came out at a finer weight than I intended. The bobbin is roughly as filled as the second one. Uncertain if it's softer, but the texture is still rather different from the first bobbin's top layer, somehow.

Well...hopefully the plying reveals some insight because I really have no idea what I did differently, but if not, I hope it will at least be fun to look at. It should be pretty, I'm just concerned about how much yarn I'm going to get out of it...it would be disappointing if it ended up being no less dense than the BFL...

25/03/26

Tried a couple of prep options.

1. Card the top, about 3 passes as usual. Roll/folded over horizontally so fibres are aligned.

Given the length, this wasn't great but I think I've done this enough times to the point where it's just business as usual. It did fluff up quite a fair bit, but got neppy, so this drafted quite unevenly. Didn't like it.

2. Put the top on one carder, loaded up more than I'd do for carding, diz off the end.

This was actually really good - I think it made a very fluffy and loose prep while still preserving the gradient transition. Possibly a bit annoying when starting, because the last bits of fibre attached to the carder are more tangled. A little neppy during those bits; I should discard them but I don't want to waste that wool. For the rest of it, the drafting is really smooth and nice, though because I can't make a very wide top like this, the twist tends to go down a bit too fast and I have to pause every now and then to draft it out a little. But I do feel the singles made from this are closer to the first bobbin's. It'd be nice to be able to prep more of this at once to reduce joins, but it's kind of fiddly because of carder size and I also don't have anything to prevent the carder from moving around while I'm pulling...

But I'm really happy with this prep; it's smoothed out the combined top and made it more consistent to draft. Unsure if it's just me but it feels like this colour section has been going on for very long too...

24/03/26 - 2nd bobbin done, 3rd bobbin started

Finished the thinner section on Sat, it turned out less squishy than the first bobbin and also possibly finer and with more twist...it occupies less space on the bobbin so I'm worried I ended up making it too dense again. Kind of disappointed but can't do anything about it really, just got to finish it and see. There's maybe a gram's difference between both bobbins, but I kind of doubt it would've made such a massive difference in volume...

Now working on the last section of the braid. Trying to keep an eye on how much fibre is going in, but again it feels more compact/defined than I'd like it to be...I do plybacks and even though the WPI and twist angle is roughly there, it just looks like there's more fibre than in my target sample. The bobbin feels about as tightly packed as the second one. I'm trying to not overtwist, but the less twist there is, the higher the tendency for the single to get thinner because there isn't enough twist to pull on the fibres, and then I have to pinch hard to draft because it isn't drafting very easily.

The drafting is also a pain for this specific section (which is the doubled-over section) - I tried to combine the two separate sections together so they would draft as one, but sometimes getting the drafting section to move across the top doesn't work (a problem when it starts pulling out the next colour), sometimes it just tightens and I have to pull harder to get it to draft. I'm holding it way too tightly in order to try and guide the drafting zone into the correct place, so the drafting is really uneven. It definitely feels a little tight when I try to pull it more open horizontally.

In hindsight, I think it would've been smoother if I'd separated out the colour sections for both bits and spun them sequentially instead of trying to combine them. If it's still possible to separate them cleanly I'll try that, I guess. I could, alternatively, separate by colour sections and card lightly to blend them/open them up...

My running theory is that the top in its original form (not stripped down or combined) is about the right size to manage twist - the stripped down one is too thin to really draft across the top, and the combined one has problems because it's not blended together evenly. Because of that, it got the best out of being fluffed up. The problem is that if I want to be able to spin more fractals, I'll have to try and figure out ways to work with tops of different widths...I suppose there's also the possible explanation that I didn't move the hooks too much so the winding on the first bobbin ended up looser than the second bobbin did. I won't know until I ply...

I guess for now I'll just try and see what I can do to open it up/blend it better. At least I have carders on hand if I need to get aggressive about it. It does make me curious about how a batt would handle, but I have no way of getting one without missing the point (it would probably get compacted) and I don't want a drum carder.

Debating if I'd like to do the same distribution for the other BR braids as well. I'll decide after I ply, but as far as the spinning experience goes (aside from being perpetually worried about the grist) I like seeing the colours work up in the singles...if the result isn't too homogeneous I think I wouldn't mind doing this repeatedly. I think I should also label my bobbin weights since I keep thinking of measuring dry weight of singles...

15/03/26 - 1st bobbin started

I've been spinning only long draw from the fold or rolags lately, and just really wanted to spin something with clear colour changes and some measure of control. The braid I've been carding into rolags has been blended too much to get anything more than a vague gradient, and the Polwarth I tried sampling from the fold is uneven and difficult to pay attention to the grist. I also thought about it a little more and I think it would be nice if I practiced enough that my default spin has higher grist so that I can consider it for projects. So...now I'm default spinning this braid, starting from the normal colour length one. The goal remains unchanged; I'm shooting for more than 200m of yarn, hopefully more.

Just doing a little bit of prep in that I'm fluffing up the fibre as much as possible before I start spinning it - hopefully that introduces more air into the yarn. I'm also checking against the card a lot. It feels like it's taking rather a lot longer to spin than before...maybe...? So possibly, I am making longer yarn. Possibly. I might actually have succeeded, because despite the fibre used weighing about as much as 1 singles for the BFL, the bobbin is nearly full up and it's noticeably squishy.

The colour changes were fun to work with - nice seeing them layer onto the bobbin. Looking forward to working with the rest of it and plying...feel like I should do more fibre with short colour changes because it brings me joy...

04/03/26 - Started

Divided braid up. The amounts didn't quite match up so I did a little bit of shifting around especially on the ends where there was a tiny bit of colour change.

The braid is nice and soft and not particularly compacted even in the darker bits. I keep petting it. Some tiny bits didn't get dye due to the folding, though. I expect it shouldn't be particularly noticeable in the spin (I like these pops of nonstandard colour anyway).

Waiting to do concrete measurements before I spin. The as-is 1/3 of the braid is slightly heavier than the other two so I can take samples from it. I don't think it particularly matters which braid I start from, but maybe I'll do the thinnest one first and work my way up...

I'm working in the order of Corriedale -> Polwarth -> Targhee -> Falkland Merino -> 18.5 micron Merino -> BFL. All fibres will be worked as 3 bobbins of 20g / 20g / 10g, and then plied as 30g 3-ply and 20g 2-ply. Unfortunately not consistent with the drafting as I found halfway through that I'm more comfortable with continuous backward draw than short forward draw.

Since I think I'll be tight on yardage, I'm skipping one repeat of the last bit of the section before the end bits (and tempting fate by not skipping one more repeat).

They blocked a lot looser, unfortunately, so doing the gauge didn't quite help...I should have reduced the stitches some more I think, and next time if/when I do socks I will definitely want to do a tubular cast on or something.

Also, the Yesterweb webring has been defunct for a bit, and I never got down to removing the link. It's removed now.

And and I also updated the kiriban number again (someday perhaps someone will catch it).

That's all for now!

This was a family trip. We used to go to Australia (primarily Gold Coast) on family trips when I was a kid, and then kind of stopped before the 2000s I think, so I haven't been there for years and years now and was pretty excited to visit again. I don't think we'd been to Sydney either, so that was new. Honestly I think it was a bit of a waste that we didn't visit the Blue Mountains even though we'd talked about it before...but I feel that's just the family trip experience.

My X100VI (well, one of my preorders) finally arrived sometime in August, so this was my own unit. Again - it's a fun camera! It was great being able to move around without the weight of my DSLR and it made some really cool shots. The one issue I had was that I suddenly got into photographing birds and not having a zoom made it rather..........difficult. But that's what my DSLR is for I guess! I only brought it out on the last full day, so there aren't that many photos taken on it that aren't birds.

Speaking of - I have actually gone for years not really knowing how to use the manual controls on my DSLR, and it took practice with the Pentax K1000/X100VI that finally got me to absorb the exposure triangle (vaguely knew what it was, never put it into practice). It's actually difficult for me to switch back to auto now because I want control over everything...but I'm still new to manual on my DSLR, so some of my shots turned out pretty overexposed when I checked them on my PC. Still got things to learn...

Anyway, here's a mix of photos from both. All are unedited, and no pics of me or my family. About half of them are my quest to document every bird species I spotted...

Part 2 of photos!! I received my scans today. Straight out of the camera, there were some issues with exposure, particularly on the Superia Premium - I remember being completely mystified about why the sunny 16 rule wasn't applying on a bright sunny day and both my camera/phone light meters were telling me to expose...more or less, I can't remember. Anyway, those photos turned out disappointingly unfortunate. However! With the power of technology (tone curve editing) I have salvaged a number of them :)

The Superia Premium was spent on the day we went to the Edo-Tokyo Architectural Museum, and the Ultramax on Hakone. Fun fact: I actually brought 3 rolls of film to use on 3 separate days, and managed to load the Ultramax roll wrong on Yokohama day, so no pictures ended up being taken on film that day and I returned with an unused roll. Really glad I had the X100VI on hand, so it wasn't a complete bust.

Photos uploaded have been edited for mainly contrast, and a few have been tweaked for saturation. The ones that didn't turn out great also have a bit more noise reduction applied, so the quality isn't fantastic. Still, they're pretty atmospheric and I like them.

I have like 5 million things that I want to work on at any given moment, but today I felt like coding, so I sat down to do some things that have been bugging me for a bit. Full changelog:

• Project pages on the "plain" view have been added.
  • These are now entirely browsable I think. The only real thing that's missing from the plain view is the guestbook, which I ran out of time to implement.
  • I also think that maybe I should change the page background colour because it's...very...bright.
  • I don't know if I'll implement the other pages. I think maybe Firelizards because it's a chance to make something that looks period-accurate...but otherwise, this is pretty much it - a barebones version of my site that does not use Javascript and looks ok on mobile.
• On the main site, project/media log explorer windows no longer group by year.
  • I originally felt this was necessary because the sidebar felt kind of empty, but as the years go on and I don't really update THAT much, it just adds extra fluff and makes me feel bad about not updating, which is not the point of this website.
• Project pages now display the date of creation/last update in the top right under the breadcrumbs.
  • I'm not sure why I didn't do this before
• Log images now show earliest upload first
  • Previously they showed latest first, similar to the picture gallery page, but when looking through my photos I felt this was kind of counterintuitive to the browsing experience.
• Fixes for the image overlay when viewing images
  • Fixed bug with showing the full text of an image in the overlay if text contained double quotes. Amateur mistake
  • Show image title if a title is given
  • Some layout tweaks for better readability when the image is small, and also when there's a lot of text
• Miscellaneous small changes
  • Updated the kiriban number (thus far no one has emailed me about catching it...)
  • Added a button for Palestine aid resources

With that, it'll probably be a while before I add anything new again. That said, I've always been thinking of corow.net, and one of my current major long-term projects is an addition to this site. I'm grappling with the idea of keeping it a secret when the point of this website is so that I can share updates, but it's always been an issue balancing motivation and secrets for me...something about posting something publicly externalises the reward mechanism and makes my internal satisfaction stop working...so I understand devs who never share updates about their projects. At least no one is expecting anything from me, so there isn't like, kickstarter backer pressure or anything. (I have been keeping a private devlog though, so maybe someday, when I'm ready to put it here, I can also import the entire devlog as a project + logs.)

Oh, and also - since ditching deviantART, I've been feeling the inconvenience of not having an art gallery/portfolio. I've been thinking I should make one, but I'm not sure what kind of setup would be both fun and convenient to work with - my private collection of WIPs and whatevers is simply a Guilded forum where I toss a new post whenever I feel like, but that's not a great archive. I guess that's a design problem for me to ponder...

Incidentally, does anyone else also dislike the whole trend of art gallery websites looking like Instagram feeds? I have not migrated to a new art site because I absolutely hate browsing art on timelines - my ideal is the old deviantART way of sending new notifs when art is posted and being able to look through thumbnails before clicking through. Secondarily, the Pixiv way of just showing a page of thumbnails. I think only Toyhouse does this now, and it's not even that kind of art gallery site.

Maybe it's just because it's quicker for me to browse = less time wasted scrolling just to see everything I missed, maybe it's because I hate the pressure of knowing every single picture I post is being put front and centre on someone's feed...I'm still waiting for a new art gallery platform that gives space for people to post "scraps". I think it's so important to have the space to make and show things that aren't Instagram ideals...but I guess that's easy to say as someone who isn't trying to turn a profit on such a site that will have a majority of free users. Until someone else agrees and builds their own gallery site on these principles, I can only build my own...

Unrelatedly, this week's batch of firelizards is number 100. It seems that two white firelizards (1% chance to generate one) generated in this batch!! Woah!!

This year's Japan trip with friends (it seems to be a yearly thing now) was from May 11 to May 21! This is part 1, because I did have my Pentax with me on a couple of days, and I have not sent the rolls for development yet. A little backstory about the camera I used...

A few months back, 3 of us noticed the X100VI. One managed to get it from a reseller before the resale prices skyrocketed, the other two (including me) placed preorders a little too late because we were thinking about the price and didn't realise it was so popular...so even though we waited for about 2 and a half months, neither of us managed to get hold of it. The one I used for this trip was a rental camera, and they requested that I try to return the settings to their original state, so I didn't go ham on customising it.

I'm new to the Fujifilm system, so the idea of film simulations and recipes was very enticing and I did have a lot of fun with these. The ones I used most were:

• Reggie's Portra
• Glacier Blue
• Technicolor Dream
• Polaroid SX70
• Classic Color
• Natural Astia

All of these were inputted as-is except the clarity setting was always 0 because I didn't want the processing time. (There is indeed one more slot, but I ended up not really using the one I saved to that slot.) The rental came with a UV filter, but I swapped it for a Glimmerglass 1 filter (from my collection of accessories I bought for my own unit) pretty early on. Also for some reason I was using the camera in manual mode all the time - I guess I felt like I really wanted control over the exposure...

My thoughts on the camera are that I'm really glad I went with the rental. It wasn't exactly super compact after the camera bag's size was included, but it did what I wanted it to do - be easy to take in and out, be fun to take pictures with, make good pictures. I'm already missing it right now...can't wait for my own to arrive, whenever that might be.

As for the trip itself - which was brutal on the legs/feet, by the way - we spent most of the time in Tokyo, with a couple of day trips to Yokohama and Hakone. Our primary purpose was Design Festa on 18-19 May, but we did go to a lot of scenic spots for photos. We've been to Tokyo many times before, so in planning this trip we picked some places that not everyone in our group had been to yet, and also some of my...let's say...(relatively) secret favourite spots. Which was a good thing, because there were A Lot of tourists, and we managed to avoid a lot of crowds like this. More info in the descriptions of each picture...

Lastly...these are all straight out of camera :) I did save raws for once and there are some pictures I think would shine with a little bit of editing, but these are just as-is. I'm also not posting pictures of me and my friends.

I'm tired, and reading anything about the scraping of social media posts for AI makes me mad, so I'm not going to talk about that. All I can do is wearily try to protect this website - emphasis on "try" - so today's update is really just that. I've updated robots.txt to block major AI crawlers and also added a couple of meta tags. For reference, here are the articles I looked at for that:

• How to block AI Crawler Bots using robots.txt file - has the most comprehensive list of user agents to block, I think
• How to Block AI from Scraping Your Content - using a meta tag to stop Bing Chat from using the page, nosnippet for blocking Google SGE
• Google-Extended does not stop Google Search Generative Experience from using your site’s content - bit more info about SGE not being specifically blockable
• Block AI Crawlers: Here’s How To Stop Your Site From Being Used for AI Training (OpenAI and Google Bard Guide) - mentions using Google Search Console to force Googlebot to re-crawl for the updated robots.txt file; I think this is only necessary if Google has already indexed your website

A small personal website that isn't even indexed on Google is probably not very likely to get crawled for AI...but let's just say I'm doing it because I'm annoyed and tired. I want to make things without having to worry about...all this...and I can't imagine how much worse it is for people whose livelihoods are at stake here. Stay strong and stay safe, friends.

Up until the week before I went, I hadn't even heard of Peace Centre, and wasn't even certain about going up until late in the day before its last day open, but I was really glad I went. For those not in the know - Peace Centre is a defunct shopping mall that was repurposed into a community space. (More details in this Straits Times article.) In essence, it's a building that lived longer than it normally would have, and community-led events happened organically in the space, notably art-related ones. It remained open for activities up until the 28th of January (the day I went to visit), and at the time of writing, is slated for demolition at last. I honestly kind of regret not having heard about it up until then; it seems like something I would've really enjoyed checking out while it was open.

And how! Even my expectations for how the visit would go were completely subverted. I'd brought my camera along because I'd heard there was graffiti on the walls (a rarity in Singapore) and ended up taking photos I didn't think I would. My friend, who'd been there earlier in the day, told me there was stuff upstairs on the 4th floor (only the first 3 floors were open to the public), and so we (and a couple of our friends who were also there) hopped the barrier and went upstairs.

The photos aren't great, that's for sure - the lighting wasn't very conducive to anything and we were basically using our phone flashes to light the corridors. And as far as urban exploration goes, this was baby mode; it was noisy and crowded just a floor below, it was daytime, and it was dubious whether or not this place was even truly off-limits or if the signs were just for the sake of avoiding responsibility for injuries and the sort of people who would complain about that stuff. There were other curious people on the same floor, just checking the place out...taking cosplay photos...sometimes spray painting the shop windows. (To top it off, after I left, the building closed earlier than expected, with management citing vandalism in the 4th floor toilets...when there was broken glass on the floor in a corridor. The entire floor was vandalised, my dude...there were new words on a wall when I saw it the second time around. The toilets are the least of your concerns?)

Anyway, enjoy the photos. Some of these are in the public spaces on floors 1-3. The dark ones are from the 4th floor. Incidentally, the 5th floor was perfectly clean, if just deserted (which was somehow worse). The ripped ceilings, trashed rooms, etc. aren't due to the ravages of time - there was intentional destruction here (and a haunted house event at some point).

My closing thoughts are that I'm glad I got to experience this. Singapore is very...sanitised...to the point where it feels like we're very passive about political and social issues. You're not allowed to organise protests. You're not allowed to do graffiti unless specifically requested by the owner of the property. Don't rock the boat. Don't be loud. Don't do anything...weird. As my friend put it, it was really nice to get to be around weirdos like us for once. There was queer graffiti on the walls and graffiti in support of Palestine; notes anonymously confessing to petty crimes and people blatantly ignoring the "do not enter" signs. It was...art. 

In May 2023 I went on vacation with my friends to Japan - the first time in 4 years since I left. In that time so much had changed; it seemed like I'd mostly returned to my old life, but at the same time, it was different from how I lived it before. I think I was terribly anxious about how things in the placed I'd lived in had changed, if anyone remembered me, if they'd judge me for not using the educational experience for any practical purpose etc., but I think I found some closure on that front during this trip.

Anyway, that's not really related to the photos. As planned, we stayed for a few days in Kansai before moving up to Tokyo. During that time, my friends needed to visit a pharmacy, and I spotted some disposable cameras near the counter. These are the better photos I took with that one camera, developed at National Photo in Harajuku. We were pretty surprised by the quality and this directly led to 3 of us getting 35mm cameras LOL.

How time flies! I didn't realise it'd been quite a while since I'd last made any project updates. I have been doing things in the meantime, but I guess they don't fit that neatly into my website, and I also...don't know how I'd make a status update on anything without also updating a project haha. (Great design)

Anyway - at the end of last year, I visited the Gardens to get some practice on my Pentax. There was some Christmas stuff going on, hence the lights. I think they came out great on the whole! I'm surprised even the night shots came out well; I was expecting those to be either too dark or suffering from hand shaky but they were all fine. There was one shot that came out blank and I don't know why, but even with that blank and a laughably glitched first shot, I got in an extra frame on the same roll so it's cool. 

These are unedited photos (the scans I received without touchups), from the second and third rolls I took on that camera. The first roll (from a separate occasion, using Kodak Ultramax 400) came out with a lot of very underexposed shots, so I metered on the bright side for these ones (and used my phone to meter separately every now and then, just in case). 

• Added a link to my links page on the splash page
• Added a couple of social media links to the About page and fixed my FFXIV home world since I moved to Behemoth recently
  • Speaking of which, I should probably put up a media log for FFXIV

I've always had a mobile-compatible page on the backburner...but honestly I detest designing for mobile compatibility because it's annoying. I dislike browsing websites on mobile. Anything that can be done on mobile I would rather do on desktop, and anything that is mobile exclusive simply doesn't exist to me. It feels to me like a symptom of capitalism in ways that I don't really want to end up ranting about for several paragraphs in a website update. But I also understand that it's an accessibility issue - having a phone is more essential than having a computer these days, so having some form of my website be accessible from mobile (as opposed to completely inaccessible when the screen is too small) is ideal.

That said, this website is my house on the Internet, so to speak, so I get to deprive mobile users of rights if I want. I've added a "plain" version of well...parts of my site...and it's linked from the splash page. Not all of it has been done yet (notably, the projects/media log pages are still not done) and I don't know when I'll get down to that, and also I won't be making all pages available on the plain version (maybe I'll do a period-accurate page for the firelizards specifically if I ever do add that though). I know it's extremely petty, and I DO have the capability to make things look better, but whatever. No display issues whatsoever AND it doesn't have any Javascript!

Anyway, story time: I brought it out to work on while on vacation and swatched it at 18 x 25 stitches in stockinette per 5cm x 5cm (washed and blocked). Based on my foot measurements and the calculations in the recipe, I was supposed to cast on 96 stitches, which was...a little worrying! The writer cast on 68 stitches for men's size 8.5. My shoe size is larger, but not THAT much larger...I attributed this to maaaaaaaybe I just knit very tight? and went ahead with it. Main modification here was to do a ktbl/p1 ribbing rather than the suggested k2p2 because I liked how it looked, but it shouldn't really have affected the wearability of the sock...I think. I got as far as finishing the cuff and a little bit of the leg on vacation, then came back home and re-blocked the swatch because I was suspicious, and the stitch count didn't change in any way that would've affected my cast-on stitches. But the looseness was bothering me a lot, so I ended up pinning it tighter to figure out a better stitch count, then frogged it entirely to redo. I don't know why my calcs were so off the mark - I imagine it's probably because of stretch, but I already accounted for negative ease, so it's a mystery...it's a bit worrying for future socks.

tl;dr sock calcs gave stitch count that was very loose, unravelled hours of knitting to start over.

Anyway, now it fits perfectly - not too loose, not too tight (although the cast-on edge isn't very stretchy, so I have to be a little careful when pulling it on to test). Current stats:

• Cast on: 76 stitches
• Cuff: 24 rows
• Leg: 50 rows
• Heel flap: 48 rows in eye of partridge

Some things I have been thinking so far:

• Went with the k2p2 rib this time. I think the look grew on me and also: it's less of a pain than the ktbls.
• The rainbow stripes go out of alignment when my tension changes, so it hiccups a little where I went a little loose and went back into formation when I tightened up again. Not very noticeable though.
• I'll have to pick up stitches on the side of the heel flap later, so it bothers me that my edges aren't neat - I can't quite see where and how many stitches to pick up. Even though my tension is even across the row, when I purl it ends up pulling the knits between the slipped stitches out of shape, especially at the end of the row. This is something I'll have to work on most probably...
• The neat edges also is a problem at the end of a round for the leg - weirdly enough I don't have issues with ladders between rounds, but I do have issues with a column of uneven stitches where the last stitch is because of the tugging. It seems to neaten up by itself after more rows so hopefully not a permanent issue.
• First time doing short rows for the heel turn - these were fairly straightforward I think. 
• The rainbow yarn is a joy to work with - hitting a rainbow section is always exciting. 10/10 would buy this yarn again.

Next up is picking up the stitches...after which it should be fairly straightforward until it hits the toes (I don't want them too pointy so I'll have to figure something out here). Obsessed, honestly - I think I like doing socks? Maybe the 50 rows of stockinette isn't that fun but it knits up fast...

Anyway, here it is: https://links.corow.net/

In other news, there aren't any other project updates because I actually...haven't worked out how to post art and life updates here (or if I want to, in the case of life updates) whoops. They will just go into the corownet logs I guess: I've been obsessing over the idea of buying myself an electric guitar, a dream that I've had for maybe about 15+ years now, and only just realised I have the money and minimal amount of storage space to get one. Which has cascaded into a lot of extra costs, so now I'm drawing a lot of adoptables in the hopes that I might be able to earn enough to cover the spending. I'll probably make a project page for the adopts later when I'm ready to display them (and then write a whole lot of alt text...). I...don't know how to make "electric guitar" a project, however - maybe I should look into coding upload/display for audio media since I have other plans for that too.

(It's hard to not feel like I should meticulously dress up all the info I'm sharing here, care about metrics or whatever junk the social media companies want us to care about etc. etc. etc. but I suppose I'm trying to feel it's ok to update a lot sometimes and then make no updates for months on end. This (infrequent updates) is more like how it should go though, I guess.)

Done with the body of the mitten now. Picked up the stitches on the thumb hopefully correctly (first time picking up stitches, but I couldn't figure out what direction to arrange the needles/stitches so that I'd be knitting in the correct direction. Uh...hopefully all that works out...

Anyway, I'm making some progress through the pattern (currently finished 12 rows out of 62 in the main chart). I don't know if I carried the unused yarn over the thumb hole correctly but I guess I will find out when I have to pick up the stitches ! What I've made so far is too small for my hands but it's for a friend with small hands (and my hands are large I think) - my bigger concern here is that the tension isn't right and I might be knitting a bit too tightly because I can't quite control my colourwork tension yet. Some of the stitches are kind of uneven/awkward-looking but I'm hoping that blocking will help with those. If I'm being honest I would probably have sworn off colourwork already if not for the fact that a lot of the patterns I have bookmarked are colourwork patterns...so I want to get good at it.

Also initially I did both strands tensioned with my left hand (continental) but kept having to readjust and do some really weird twisting, which was taking time and I think made the floats tighter, so here was where I learnt to do English knitting. I'm still very awkward at it and it's caused a few stitches to pop off the needles, but I think I'm getting faster and it feels less impossible to manipulate now. The floats from this look a lot nicer/regular too. 

The ribbing is going slowly because ktbl is...quite annoying...it DOES look better than k1p1 rib but WOW I started this worrying about if I'd be able to do the charts and colourwork correctly and I am still slowly doing the rib. AND I have to do a second mitten... 😂 It will be worth it...

I think I could make another one of these out of the remaining yarn...although I'd have to use a different colour for the front fins since I'd run out of colour 2...

Modified the third stockinette section to have 2 extra rows so I can use more of the pink and also end off on the pink.

Reflections:

• The colour changes are wayyyyy too squished. I definitely should've begun striping in the new colours earlier, but I wouldn't have been able to guess if I had enough yarn left. Not sure if there's anything I could've done that would've solved all of these problems. It doesn't look THAT bad - it's just that the second and third colours have a fairly large jump in contrast, so it looks like the first colour abruptly stops, when actually that's the second colour.
• I did not swatch for this because again...I didn't know how much I could spare, also it's not a fitted garment so it's not terribad to be off. HOWEVER I did use smaller needles than suggested (4.5mm instead of 5mm), so the horizontal width (about 80-81cm on the blocking board) falls quite a fair bit short of the expected dimensions (though the vertical height is pretty close). I think it's still wearable, but it would've been nice if it were larger.
• For some reason my stitch counts were off and asymmetrically so. I'm...not sure why...I couldn't figure out where it went wrong...but also because I couldn't, I figured it'd be fine to just ignore it lol.
• First time blocking a project. It's still on the board but I already like how much neater the edges look like this - fresh off the needles it was curling a little and was a little hard to get a photo. I don't have a lot of physical space so the smaller size works in my favour...also I do not like the smell of wet wool. Praying it goes away completely once it dries.

I'm left with quite a fair bit of extra yarn - not enough for a decently-sized project, yet still Too Much. I think I'll do a swatch for swatching's sake, but even so, I'll probably have some left...

Overall this was an easy knit, aside from my worries over the distribution of the colours I enjoyed it. I'd do it again but maybe with appropriately portioned yarn and/or a solid colour - I like the heathered colours in the samples...will consider it...

The yarn was nice to work with, aside from the smell I suppose. Definitely want to buy from this shop again, maybe when I've chewed through more of my yarn stash......

Anyway, I made a new template by modifying the default one (mono). I'm not entirely sure what all these variables are (haven't gone into the backend code to look) and the indentation is, to put it lightly, not very existent...so getting it all cleaned up is a bit time-consuming. BUT I think I managed to have it looking cleaner! (Also woah I didn't know they got ShiPainter to work...please I would like to have ShiPro my beloved back...)

It's a bit of a cross between nostalgic BBS Note and Wacintaki...I actually thought of putting the navigation on a header nav at the very top of the page like the latter, but personally I wanted the top part of my board to be more open. I think I could make maybe 2 or so variants on the layout once I'm done wrangling the basics...

It's still not done yet - there are some half-finished pages, I'm making some design decisions on the commenting form/response pages, will probably do some language editing on the oekaki app instructions...possibly see if I can get the edit form working in a more intuitive way...and then work on colour schemes (I'm a little unsure, but I think I might be able to use CSS custom properties to make custom colour schemes possible to do without SASS)...and then do my own personal customisations. It's all very jank because I'm not really keeping track of which vars are available when, and I'm doing my best to separate bits out so I can reuse code...but I do plan to release this and possibly a couple of other similar themes on Github, since there aren't that many themes available for poti-kai especially after the conversion to BladeOne.

Also: I kind of want to see if I can hack the blank redirection page that shows after something is posted, so a dark mode theme could remain in dark mode...

Completely unrelatedly my 100th visitor kiriban was missed!!! The new one is 200!!!

It seems like there's a high chance of colour remapping glitching out on the outline when pidges are generated individually, so I think I might have to permanently fix it (layer the lineart in black on top of generated pidges). Unfortunate, because I liked the rare weird pidge, but they're no longer rare like this...

The page layout is inspired by wikified horrors (SCP, Backrooms). There IS lore behind this that's related to one of my OCs, but actually I made up most of the content on the spot, so I can't really talk about it...other than that, I'm quite proud of the gacha machine art and the combination of pixel art/css animation. 

I haven't on anything else site-related, so that's all for this update. Busy busy...

Progress for the second day of working on this - it's very simple so it works up fast. My main issues are that:

• My yarn over-purls are very loose for some reason (compared to the yarn over-knits on the opposite side), so I have to pull them extra tight
• Somehow ended up with 1 extra stitch on one side and 1 less stitch on the other??
• Should probably have started striping in the second colour earlier for better colour distribution...
• I'm on the 3rd and last stockinette section, have 3 more colours unused, and just started on the 3rd colour...that's only slightly above 21 rows left to blend in 3 new colours, so this is going to be terribly imbalanced. 

The yarn does get used quite fast in terms of weight (compared to when I was working with fingering weight yarn) so I think I should be able to get through the other colour changes...but it will likely look quite funky. Not sure how many rows I should expect colours to take...but it's fun working with these colours because I like them.

There are still a couple of things I'd like to do that are pidgeon-related, but they're on the backburner for now while I think about how I want to implement those. Next up I think I'll be plugging away at that oekaki skin, probably. And more desktop icons maybe...

Thinking also that the year grouping of projects/media doesn't really cut it because it'll get really long after a few years and feels really redundant before enough years have passed, so I kind of want to do some tweaks to the display. Much to think about...

Oh, and I got approved for the Yesterweb Ring. If you came from there: hello!!!

WHICH I HAD SO MUCH TROUBLE GETTING ON MY PC. I usually upload them in a private server on Discord because it's the fastest way I can think of to get photos onto my computer (I use an iPhone) that is also free. I couldn't do this because I had a lot of photos to upload and having to rescroll to get all the pictures I wanted sucked.

So I tried plugging my phone into my computer. I couldn't see the internal file system for some reason??? 

So I very reluctantly hooked it up to iCloud photos as an extremely temporary solution to this problem and that's how I got the photos on my computer, but I just really hate that I had to jump through hoops just to get some photos onto my desktop. How have we as a species not yet invented a decent way to transfer pictures from a phone to a desktop PC??? Actually, scratch that, we have - that was my second attempt (plugging the phone into the computer and grabbing it from the internal file system). There's probably some driver stuff going on that caused the files to not display and it should, normally...but it sucks that there's even a problem with this in the first place. This is why I strongly believe mobile (and especially iOS) is just a terrible device to do anything on at all...

Anyway that's not the point of this log. Have some progress photos.

Set up an oekaki board on a subdomain. I actually got a little distracted and started writing a new skin for it - the standard POTI-board layout isn't really to my taste and the theme I used on a previous board isn't compatible with the new templating engine. (The upside is that the new templating engine is exactly the one I use all the time, so I don't foresee many difficulties. I'll probably be working on that after the pidgeon stuff is done.

Speaking of pidgeons - I spent a lot of time preparing page text and layout graphics and haven't actually started working on the layout code yet.........next week I guess.........this one was REALLY hard to design and I still have yet to code the rolling generation, so it might just end up being another couple of weeks before it's fully complete. But at least I have the design done I GUESS. 

Apart from that, did some minor organisation of links, added some more new ones, and added the ability to..........not link. Just so I can create headers...

The website is no longer up, but the Internet Archive still has it and the download intact. I don't know Perl, but it's easy enough to make simple modifications, so I translated the text, tweaked a few things and so on. I might write setup instructions, but I can't distribute the modified code.

Besides that, fiddled with the splash page and the welcome page a little. I do intend to join some webrings later, so I wanted to make sure I had some space set aside for them. (Hopefully my merch shop self-promotion doesn't break any rules re: selling stuff? I feel it doesn't go against the spirit, but I am always nervous.) I have a lot of mixed feelings about explaining what "kiriban" means...uh...I hope I'm not TOO old. It's not THAT old of a concept, is it???

I was REALLY hoping to get the pidge page done but spent the entire day pixelling the gacha machine graphic I needed (and tweaking the animation) but at least next week...I'll probably actually get to work on it...???

I'm still missing a desktop background because I'm not entirely sure what to draw for it...it will most likely be tiled, but tiled backgrounds are REALLY hard to draw. I guess I'll think about it for a while.

Also, shuffled some of the links around. I don't really want to duplicate links in the Start menu in case it makes people overlook other links in the menu, but the menu panel doesn't look good if it's too short...so I think I might add a changelog that links here...I also still have a downloads page to make, so that's another item.

Besides that, also added a counter. FC2 has such a wide variety of counters that it's hard to decide even though I was already set on a specific look! 

It feels weird thinking about this as being an entire website that people can visit in this state. I'm afraid of losing interest in working on it...but I would still like to tell my friends...so I think I'd have to come up with ways to trick myself into thinking this is still totally under construction haha. Maybe the site will be considered "finished" when I do a wallpaper and replace the link icon...

Mostly worked on pidges though! I think next week I will be actually hooking up the pidge generation and making pidges available for adoption.

Got a lot of art to do, I think...