The Dye Pot

This past weekend, I got out the dye pot and worked on about 8 oz white merino I had laying about. The first batch was a green/blue/brown combination. It didn't quite work out how I wanted, but it still looks quite nice.

4 oz of merino

I dyed the other half a motley of purple & blues. Although I think I might have felted parts of it slightly. *sigh*. I think I might ply the two together, and call it "Lilac Bush".

Tour de Fleece: Finale

My actual Tour de Fleece project (core-spinning) was done with plenty of time left over. So I added a secondary project (Stash Busting) to get through about 8oz of rainbow colored merino for the last half of the Tour.

I broke up the merino into .5 oz bumps, spun them up all the same (semi-worseted) then finished them differently so I could see what each would look like: Navajo plied, singles, 2ply.

I've finished (washed/thwacked) with the Navajo plied & the singles (which were washed & fulled for added strength. However, I still need to finish the second bobbin of the 2ply (I'm 3 bumps away from finishing it). BUT since I got my primary project finished, anything additional was gravy.

Here's a photo summary:

PRIMARY PROJECT

5 bobbins of this (probably 400 yards of singles at least):

To 100 yards of coiled & bobbled yarn:

SECONDARY PROJECT
(80% done)

From 8oz of colored merino:

To Navajo plied

2oz. 182 yards, heavy fingering weight, Navajo plied

and Single plied

Languishing Knitting

I haven't gotten much knitting done as of late, except during lunch breaks at work, because I've been spinning so much for Tour de Fleece. I feel like my Ribby Cardi is in never-ending cycle. I'll knit a few rounds, but see limited progress.

For now, I've got spinning on the brain. I'm thinking about all those yummy fibers in my Stash(TM) and the need to spin them all up!

Some of the Fibers in my Stash

Tour de Fleece: Picked Project

I didn't get much spinning done this past weekend, because we went out of town. However, I did spend extra time during the week spinning, as well as bringing my spindles with me to keep on spinning my wheels.

When I got back, I spent some time Navajo plying the resulting singles so I could preserve the long 8 color repeats.

2oz. 182 yards, heavy fingering weight, Navajo plied

While I was plying, DH looked over and asked me why I was running my yarn back through the wheel. He wanted to know if I was adding or removing twist. I told him I was plying. He said, "But there's only one bobbin."

I had to explain to him how to Navajo plied -- at least he's learning. :-)

Tour de Fleece: July 15th

My secondary project is going along well enough.

I'm currently on the mustard colored merino (having started on the orange-yellow and going counter-clockwise).

Each of the bumps was broken into quarters (1/4th). I'm still on the first quarter of each color.

Tour de Fleece

This past weekend, I finished up the last skein of the core ply yarn. I think I have about ~100 yards or so of coiled yarn.

That brown yarn? That's sock yarn to give you an idea.

Close-up -- Coils

To give you an idea, there 5 bobbins of this fiber.

I really really enjoyed spinning this up, but it took *forever* to finish ply a single bobbin. And I had some hiccups with my core snapping.

However, I solved the problem by winding some of the core thread onto a bobbin and letting it dangle while I spun. The bobbin then "unspun" any twist I was adding. It was a nifty way to keep the core from acquiring too much additional twist while spinning.

Now that I've finished the primary project, I've movedonto my secondary project, and spinning the following into to self-striping yarn. Each bump is 1oz of merino fiber. This is the order I am spinning the fiber (in clockwise order starting with the yellow at "noon").

I've broken out each bump into quarters (.25 oz per bump)

I was *originally* planning on core spinning it, but after I laid out all of the fiber in the order I wanted, it just called out to be a striped yarn.

I will navajo-ply it to maintain color-consistency.

(Previous Tour-de-Fleece posts)

When Knitting Attacks: Sweater

I finished gauge swatching for the Ribby Cardy by Bon Marie Burns (Ravelry link).

And surprisingly, I've gotten gauge on the first set of needles I've tried (US 6). O also tried a swatch at US 5s and US6s but the blocking/washing still puts me at correct gauge at US6s.

But, better safe than sorry, yes? For big things like sweaters, where it might take me a month to complete, I'll definitely swatch religiously. On smaller projects, like hats & socks -- not so much.

Luckily, the swatch went without a hitch. HOWEVER, the actual knitting has been problematic at best.

I cast on the sweater, and am 5 inches into it since the July 4th weekend, and it's been slow going due to various errors (on my part, not the pattern). Why? Because I rewrote the pattern to do it in-the-round (about 2 weeks ago), and I was second-guessing myself, AND I'm not reading my own damn pattern notes OR I put in not-so-detailed notes to my modifications. Consequently, thus far, I've had to:

1) begin 2x over, because I couldn't count correctly, which lead to the incorrect number of stitches.

2) frog a few rounds, because, apparently, I can't keep read a pattern. (Several times over.

3) I had to drop down more than a few stitches, because I'd switch a purl to a knit or a knit to a purl....multiple times over...and not notice until a few rounds later.

I'm only FIVE INCHES and it's been nearly a WEEK since I started.

Tour de Fleece: Day 5 - Photo Update

Here's a photo update of everything up to Day 5.

Pre- Tour de Fleece:

I started with this fiber (CVM, llama, silk)

that became these singles:

And I took this yarn (Jagger Main line Merino Cream)

And unspun some of the twist. (Note to self: I need to unspin a LOT OF the twist for future use).

Tour de Fleece
For Tour de Fleece, I've been plying the Jagger with the above singles to produce this:

and this:

I'm still working on the last two bobbins. And I have to say, I'm kinda having fun with core plying. It is a form of "potato-chip" spinning; I can't seem to stop.


(Previous Tour de Fleece posts can be found at this link.)

Tour de Fleece: Getting Ahead of Myself

For Tour de Fleece, I decided that I was going to do some core spinning/plying.
Previously, I had spun this fiber up into about 4 bobbins of singles (each bobbin = 1oz of lace weight singles)

I had tried to core spin with it, but to no avail. And I didn't like how it looked plied with itself. So, I decided to core ply it for Tour de Fleece.

In the past two days, I've managed to go through about 2 bobbins worth of singles. I'm glad I have a backup project to get me through the next two weeks of Tour de Fleece.


(Previous Tour-de-Fleece 2010 posts:)
* Debating on Projects
* Project Picked

Top Down No Gauge Stocking Cap Pattern

I finally finished writing up my notes for the stocking cap pattern that I worked on last month using my handspun. The pattern can be found on Google Docs.

You can read more about the evolution of the stocking cap in two previous posts:

1) The beginning

2) The end.

Link to the pattern.

Enjoy.

Slogging through 2nd Sock

Normally, I knit two socks at the same time on two circular needles. I find that my socks match pretty much perfectly when I do that.

However, this time around, I was trying out a new slip-stitch ribbing pattern that I'd never done before, and I thought it best to just do one sock at a time, in case I mess up. Ripping back one sock is much easier than ripping two socks back.

And, now that I'm done with the first sock, I'm really slowing down on the second sock. And somewhere along the line, I messed up my round count, so I think one sock might be a smidge longer than the 1st sock.

I think I shall have to go back to doing 2-socks at the same time.

Tour de Fleece: Picked Project

I think I've finally decided on my Tour de Fleece project. For this year (my 1st year), I'll be doing core plying/spinning.

So, to that end, I've spun up 3.5 bobbins worth of singles.
I have some rather bland wool weaving yarn that I'll be using for the core.

I have a backup project if that doesn't work out as I hope it might -- try actually doing core spinning using some colored merino wools that I have in the Stash.

Knitted Matches?

It was a little chilly this morning, so I grabbed a knitted kerchief and fingerless gloves as I ran out the door in a rush. I had decided to wear my hand-knitted pull over today as well.

Hand-knitted items always match, right? And primary colors always match together, yes? I mean, red, blue, and green match, yes? (I caught a glimpse of myself at the glass doors at work....oofda...)

Top Down No Gauge Stocking Cap

Several days ago, I finally finished up my stocking cap using my handspun. I wasn't exactly sure how much yardage I was going to end up using, and while looking at the ever shrinking ball of yarn, so I decreased the number of rows between increases until I got my finished hat size.

I ended with a foot of yarn left over, which promptly went to make a tassle for it. The tassle looked very wimpy, so I got some purple commercial yarn, and made another tassle for it.

Measurements
Lengthwise: 33 inches (not including tassles)
Circumference: 21 inches

I still need to write up my notes for this pattern.

Famous Dead Fish

Well, that was unexpected.

I was catching up on some of the blogs I read, and saw my Dead Fish Hat on the Craftzine Weekly Round-up. LOL I was wondering why I had gotten a bunch of comments on it, via my Flickr account!

I'll have to tell my nephew that his hat is famous now. LOL

Fiber Exploration

Yesterday, I started spinning this particular fiber.

I took about an ounce to play with to see what it wanted to do. First, I tried to spin it as a low-spun single, like the last one, but it wasn't too happy with that.

Then I tried to see if I couldn't core spin it, but while I liked the look of it, the silk content (nearly 50%) wasn't cooperating. Plus, I think I had the wrong type of crochet thread to use as the core.

Finally, I changed out the ratios to 14:1, and FINALLY, the silk & alpaca were happy with it being spun super/frog-hair thin. And, it looks pretty darn good.

And, I've found that while I like silk, I'm not particularly fond of spinning something that contains 50% or more silk. Nor would I use something that's frog-hair thin -- even plied, this is going to be light laceweight. I'm just more of a fingering / sport / DK weight type of girl.

However, I will finish this particular 5 oz of fiber, and then go back to my beloved wool. I have some cormo sitting and calling my name.

Core spinning?

I was perusing through Ravelry recently, and I came upon some core spun yarn like this one:




And, I am thinking that I am liking it. I think I might try this very very soon....if only as a learning experience.

3rd Glove curse

Apparently, I have been saddled with a curse -- 3rd glove syndrome -- whereby, I will *lose* one glove, and be forced to make another. This has hit me twice over now.

First, it was one of my Dashing Handwarmers that I lost on a train; I think it fell out of my pocket.

Luckily, I had more of the same yarn to make another.

Then, most recently, it was my Hand Thing-a-ma-bobs. A dear friend had given me a *single* skein of hand dyed merino worsted yarn from Spincycle (120 yards) as a gift.

It took me 113 yards to make the last pair (which was a gift). So, I knew I had more than enough to make a set for myself.

I had finished the 1st glove and had started the second. I knew that I should have left it at home because I was afraid I was going to lose it. However, I didn't listen to myself, and brought it to show a friend.

And, guess, what? 20 minutes later, it was no longer in my bag. I double checked to where I was earlier, checked lost & found, filed a report WITH lost & found, but I never got it back.

I *thought* I might have enough yardage to finish it, IF I made it a little bit shorter --- having it come to my knuckles versus the 1st joints on the fingers.

I managed to eek out just enough yardage. I had 5 INCHES left. Talk about heart pounding....

Lovely, aren't they? And, oh, so warm. I have made definite use of them.

FO: Travelling Mojo

During a recent trip, I managed to finish the last four charted rows of my shawlette, the Travelling Woman pattern (Ravelry link) using some KnitPicks Essential Kettle Dyed.

I also managed to get it blocked that day because the day was extremely warm, and only a hour outside saw it completely dry.

(The correct shade of red.)

It's thin, but warm, and is serving perfectly at work when the AC kicks into high gear.

(The incorrect shade of red due to lighting.)

AND, as it happens, it's the same *exact* shade of red as my REI fleece jacket and my fingerless mitts. I am nothing but consistent (or predictable....)

Overall, it was a relatively simple pattern to follow, and I *might* make more out of yarn from the stash. It only took 1.35 skeins (at about 311 yards), so it'd be good for left over yardage or low yardage from handspun.

Knitting Handspun

Despite being in a spinning mode as of late, I have been knitting a little bit. Normally, I am a process spinner and don't really spin for projects. AND, I usually finish all of my roving/top/batt first, before I start knitting with it. However, before we went on a 4-hour trip, I had finished spinning/plying 2 ounces of a 4-oz corriedale hand-dyed roving. I had purchased it over at Stitches West from one of the dealers.

Balanced 2-ply roving, ~101 yards, DK-sport weight.

I wanted to start something "simple" that my poor addled brain could handle on the 4-hour drive up to Tahoe that didn't involve counting stitches (i.e. My Travelling Woman shawlette). So, I started a top-down stocking cap (my own design) that is all stockinette stitch.

I have to say, I *love* knitting with handspun. It was balanced, it was lofty, and oh-so-soft (despite some problems spinning it). It's got a few thick-thin spots, but most of it is pretty consistent, but I can see where it could have been improved. LOL

I managed to finish off the first skein of yarn in the middle of the trip. Luckily, I had brought another knitting project with me (along with 2 spindles), but I couldn't wait to get home to finish spinning up the rest of the roving.

When we got home from the trip, I had taken the day off from work, so I went ahead and spun/ply-ed/washed the second 2-ounces of the roving into about 151 yards, which should be enough to finish the stocking cap.