Knit/Wit

Future Sweater

2012-01-26T19:52:00.001-05:00

I am just about done with the hat, thank goodness, so while I am still on my sweater spinning kick at least through the end of the month, I am beginning to plan the next project.

I really haven't been able to get over the cuteness of the Snowy Owl Cardigan, so the next sweater on the needles will be a larger version for Rainbow. I knit a bunch of sweaters for her when she was just an infant (most of which she never wore, I might add!) but have only finished one in a toddler size, and I'd hate for her to be the knitter's equivalent of the cobbler's shoeless children. I have some very well marinated Cascade 220 in the stash that was leftover from my Central Park Hoodie (if you click over to see, have a look at the date so you can see what I mean!) that I think will work perfectly, and some scraps of the same yarn in a dark brownish gray (leftover from the Mister's first Seamless Hybrid) should do well for the branch.

I'm fairly certain that I have some cream-colored Patons Classic Merino scraps somewhere that I can use for the owl, though those might require some digging to locate.

Though I didn't make it a formal resolution, I do want to try to knit from my stash as much as possible this year, and I think this is a good start to it!

Fourth Time's the Charm?

2012-01-23T20:07:00.000-05:00

I know I didn't post a sweater spinning update yesterday; in truth, I didn't get as much spinning done as I was hoping to, but it was for a good reason. I spent a lot more time knitting than spinning last week because I am on a deadline!

I'm not sure if I ever mentioned it, but my Tiled In Cowl is now available on Knit Picks as part of the Independent Designer Partnership Program as well as on Ravelry. After I posted the pattern in several places on Ravelry, including the Knit Picks Lovers groups, I got several requests for a matching hat. Who am I to turn down a request like that? I knit up some prototypes with yarn that I had on hand and then submitted a proposal to Knit Picks. The pattern is now in testing and tech editing, and after receiving yarn support from Knit Picks about a week and a half ago, I have been madly knitting up the samples with the hope of getting most hats done and in the mail by this weekend. I finished the women's sample late last week and am about halfway through the colorwork band on the men's version:

I still love the colorwork motif, but I will admit that I'm ready to move onto something different after knitting four hats with it!

Another Wee Thing

2012-01-19T20:16:00.000-05:00

Remember the thing that needed buttons and ends woven in? Shortly after posting, I did just that, and now I have another baby sweater done.

Pattern: Baby Sophisticate by Linden Down
Yarn: Cascade 220 Superwash, in Navy (~145 yards) and Feather Gray (~90 yards)
Needles: US 7 (4.5 mm) Addi Turbo circs
Started/Completed: January 9/January 17
Mods: worked four-row stripes

I enjoyed this pattern so much the last time I knit it that when I got an invitation for a baby shower a couple of weeks ago, I immediately went to pull out the pattern again. This time, because I didn't really have the time (or suitable fiber) to spin the yarn for it, I went for an old stand-by, Cascade 220 Superwash. I happened to find two very compatible colors in the orphans bin at my LYS, so I decided to up the excitement factor a bit by working stripes. I started and ended with the lighter color and used the navy for the cuffs and collar; the beauty of the top-down raglan is that the stripes match up perfectly.

The recipient of this sweater is due in mid-March, so I opted to make the larger size; with my difference in gauge (about 18 stitches over 4 inches, rather than the 15 stitches called for in the pattern), it may be able to be worn in the first couple of months and perhaps even into the fall. I happened to find buttons in my grab bag that were a virtual match for the beige yarn, so no additional button shopping was needed, and all that's left to do is give this a good blocking and wrap it up.

This is, I believe, the last of the baby knits for a while, though who knows who else might have an announcement in the next few months? (For the record? It won't be me.)

Just the Finishing

2012-01-17T19:49:00.000-05:00

Just a quick post for tonight, because I don't really have much blog-worthy to talk about, but I do have a to-do list for the evening. I must take this cute little striped thing:

and weave in all the ends and sew on four buttons. Should be a piece of cake, right?

Spinning Motivation

2012-01-15T20:29:00.000-05:00

I'm here with your weekly update on my sheep-to-sweater project. I must say that before I did this the first time, it seemed like such a big undertaking. Then, having done it once, it was still a big project, but one that was total doable. This year, with the miniSpinner, it's almost a piece of cake.

As of this afternoon, a full pound of singles have been spun (the eighth bobbin's worth not shown, as it's still resting on the bobbin). I spun 30 ounces last year and will probably do at least that much this year; if that's my final number, I'm more than halfway done spinning the singles. The miniSpinner does have something to do with the speed at which I've been spinning the fiber up, but I think I also have some good motivation in the form of the fiber that arrived at my door last week.

It's nearly impossible to capture the beauty of this fiber. It's 50% merino, 50% silk, and it really seems to glow. I am saving this until I am finished with the sweater spinning (or at least finished spinning the singles), both as a reward and as a means of keeping my consistency, but I really want to dig into it now!

Eight Monkeys

2012-01-12T17:35:00.000-05:00

You know the old saying about if it ain't broke, don't fix it? I think that's very true when it comes to my sock knitting. There are several patterns -- plain stockinette excluded -- that I've knit again and again, but none as many times as I've knit this pattern.

Pattern: Monkey by Cooke A., winter 2006 Knitty
Yarn: Socks That Rock Lightweight (100% superwash merino) in the Incredible Shrinking Violet, one skein
Needles: two 12" US 1.5 (2.5 mm) Addi Turbo circs -- my favorite sock needles!
Started/Completed: December 28, 2011/January 8, 2011
Mods: changed all purls to knits

The dates on this project are somewhat deceptive. I took the skein of yarn (which had been in my stash for probably a year and a half -- it was from a shipment of the Rockin' Sock Club) with me to Florida to have a smaller, more portable alternative to the sweater with many strings attached. I cast on the first sock our first morning there and was kitchenering the toe by the next evening. The second, sock, though, got a bit neglected for the rest of our trip as I focused on the sweater and then when we got home as I turned my attention to spinning. I was so close to finishing, though, that I was determined not to let it linger as it was, so I spent a few hours over the weekend finishing it up.

I think I've only knit this pattern with the purls in the stitch pattern once; I much prefer the knitting experience and the finished look of it without the purls. It's a much faster knit for me this way, too.

It'd been a while since I last knit myself a pair of socks, and considering that there are several pairs of socks in my drawer that appear to be nearing the end of their life, it's nice to have a new pair to work into the rotation.

So Many Ends -- But So Cute!

2012-01-10T07:10:00.000-05:00

Technically, this was the last finished object of 2011. I finished weaving in the last end about 30 seconds before the stroke of midnight. Of course, it took me about a week after that to finally sew on the buttons and give it a much-needed blocking. So perhaps this also qualifies as the first finished object of 2012?

Pattern: Snowy Owl Cardigan by Elizabeth Suarez
Yarn: madelinetosh tosh dk (100% merino) in Logwood, a little less than two skeins, with small amounts of Fig (for branch) and Antler (for owl)
Needles: US 4 (3.5 mm) Addi Turbo circs
Size: 12 months
Started/Completed: December 24/December 31, 2011
Mods: none

I first saw this pattern when it was in testing and somehow managed to find it again when I was looking for it. This sweater is a gift for a baby due in about two weeks; the parents-to-be have been friends of ours for several years and were among the first to come visit us (and bring us dinner!) when Rainbow was born. The mom-to-be's baby shower was entirely in an owl theme, and when she told me that the nursery had been decorated with a big tree and several owls, I knew this sweater would be perfect.

I used the recommended yarn for the sweater but did not quite get gauge; I'd already gone down two needle sizes from what was recommended, and I thought that if I went down another size, the fabric would be way too stiff. So although I made a 12 month size, the finished sweater is probably a bit bigger than that -- in my opinion, that's not necessarily a bad thing in a baby sweater (much better to be too big than too small!). Some extremely kind Ravelers on the madelinetosh board sent me some of their tosh dk leftovers so that I wouldn't have to purchase two full skeins for just a few yards' worth, and as you can see, the colors worked perfectly.

Duplicate-stitched eyes

As to the pattern, perhaps I'm more critical than I used to be now that I write my own, but I thought it could have been a little more clear in a couple of places to make it more accessible to a less-experienced knitter. Intarsia's not really a beginner's technique, though, so maybe it's not an issue. I didn't really have any issues following the pattern, and obviously it results in an adorable sweater. What's more, it's an extremely affordable pattern as pay patterns go, so I definitely think it was worth it. The intarsia portion is very fussy, but it's only about 25-30 rows of the pattern; if you're going to knit this, I'd advise working on the intarsia portion when you have time and space to spread all your knitting out, because you will have to rearrange/untangle your yarn every row. And there are about a million ends to weave in at the end, but that's easily done with a good podcast to listen to or a good TV show or movie to watch.

The final verdict? Definitely a winner. I can't wait to present this to the new parents as soon as the recipient makes her debut. Rainbow has also expressed interest in the sweater, so I may be making her one in the near future. Methinks the vast stash of Cascade 220 I have might be perfect!

On Pace

2012-01-08T20:14:00.000-05:00

While I haven't been spinning up my fleece as much as I would like in the past week, I have made some some decent progress. I have gotten through 8 ounces so far (the three bobbins' worth you see here, plus once batch of singles still resting on the bobbin).

I've found that in the same amount of time that it took me spin an ounce last year on the Lendrum, I can spin two ounces on the miniSpinner. If that continues to be true, I should be able to get through the same amount of fiber in half the time. Of course, last year I was spinning an ounce almost every day; this year, I've only sat down to spin three or four times, so technically I think I'd need to spin more often to keep up the pace. Regardless, I'm pretty much on track with where I was last year, so I think it's reasonable to think that I'll have a sweater's worth of yarn within a month or so.

One of the reasons that I didn't get as much done as I was hoping is because I had to finish up a project that when on the wheel just before the holidays and was finished up when we got back from our trip. This was the December 2011 All Spun Up spinalong, a gorgeous 50% merino/50% tencel blend in a colorway called Water Lilies. For speed's sake, I decided to spin the fiber in one go and chain ply it -- I even spun the singles a little thicker than usual so it wouldn't take forever. The resulting yarn is what you see here:

As I was plying, I realized that it took me a little while to successfully spin a little thicker -- my first several yards of singles were much thinner than the rest, so evidently I had difficulty spinning anything thicker than my usual! In any case, most of the yarn is roughly DK weight, and the skein is 207 yards.

You can see in the difference between the two photos how difficult this blend can be to photograph -- the shine of the tencel really throws the color off! I haven't thought much about it yet, but I think this yarn will need to turn into some sort of neck accessory with a lot of drape. Eventually, of course. There's plenty of fiber to spin and plenty of handspun to knit still in the stash!

Now the Fun Part

2012-01-05T22:14:00.000-05:00

It may not look that great yet (probably because I took this photo at about 10 p.m. with my phone), but the Cranford shawl is done!

I have to do a few measurements (dimensions, gauge, etc.), type up the pattern, and give it a blocking so I can do a proper photo shoot, but we're in the home stretch here! I'm hoping to get this into testing by sometime next week -- and in the meantime, I can keep myself warm by wrapping up in this shawl.

Romney 2012

2012-01-02T19:58:00.000-05:00

Before you click away, let me assure you that this post is in no way political -- I'm not talking about that Romney, I'm talking about this one:

Specifically, this is the cleaned and carded fleece I bought at Maryland Sheep & Wool -- well, about 30 ounces of it, anyway. Although I'm starting a day late due to our late flight home last night (we didn't get in until after 9, and by the time I had unpacked, gotten Rainbow to bed, and sat down to eat dinner, it was 10:30, so I wasn't about to start in on the spinning then), I am once again doing a sheep to sweater project this year. You may recall that I did this last year with some mystery wool I had inherited. It wasn't the best fiber to spin or knit, and while I love the sweater it became, it's not my favorite to wear because it's on the scratchy side. This year, I have this lovely cream-colored Romney to work with, and I know itching won't be an issue because I spent a good 10 minutes with my bare arm submersed in the box of wool when it first arrived from the carding mill and was quite comfortable.

Although I'm more or less following the same guidelines as last year -- spin all my singles first, then mix them up to ply for consistency -- I am making one big change. Now that I have the miniSpinner with its WooLee Winder and bobbins, I can spin a lot faster and can do much larger skeins. Rather than spinning an ounce at a time, I'm spinning two ounces at a go, meaning that the finished three-ply skeins will be six ounces, more or less. I managed to do about an ounce a night last year on my Lendrum, so I think it's reasonable to think that I can do at least that much on the miniSpinner this year. I've already started the first ball of fiber and am loving it. Here's to a new year of spinning!

New Year, New Yarn

2012-01-01T16:33:00.000-05:00

I'm typing this quick post from our gate at the Southwest Florida International Airport, where we're waiting to get on our flight back home (and dreading it, a bit, to be honest -- we've be thoroughly spoiled this trip with warm weather and sunny, cloudless skies every day). I have some big doings to talk about when we get home, but for now, I do have some handspun to share with you -- it is Sunday, after all.

You may recall this gorgeous All Spun Up Polwarth/silk fiber that arrived at least a couple months ago. When I got it, I knew I wanted to challenge myself, so I set out to spin up all 8 ounces into a two-ply laceweight, one huge skein of it. It took me nearly two months to spin the singles and ply, even with my miniSpinner, but I got it done.

A whopping 1,630 yards are in this skein, which didn't use the full 8 oz. (I had a bit leftover on one bobbin). I was hoping for closer to 2,000, but I blame the poof factor of Polwarth. Still, this should be enough to make myself a laceweight sweater. The colors are really hard to capture accurately, so here's a shot without the flash.

Can't wait to knit this up!

2011: Day 365

2011-12-31T15:16:00.000-05:00

Amazingly, it's the last day of the year again. I swear that the older I get, the faster time passes. It's been quite a year, both in my fiber-y life and my personal life. I have a bit of a tradition of doing a reflective blog post at the end of the year, so even though I am sitting next to the pool in almost 80 degree heat many miles away from my stash, I don't think it's time to break with tradition.

I completed several large projects this year, namely three sweaters for me.

The first of these was a major accomplishment because I spun the yarn for the sweater myself (a feat I hope to be repeating in the new year when I spin up the fleece I bought at MDSW).

It was also a year of knitting for others, though, as I finished a gorgeous sweater for Rainbow, a number of baby gifts (with more to be knit in the coming months), and several items for charitable causes.

In many ways this year, knitting took a back seat to spinning. With the acquisition of my Hansen miniSpinner earlier this year, my spinning time increased and my productivity dramatically increased. I burned through a good portion of my stash (though I'll readily admit I added to it as well) and won my LYS's first summer spinning contest.

My longest skein of the summer -- 1,000+ yards of laceweight!

The really big leap this year, though, was taking the next step toward designing knitwear. I released three patterns this year (they're over there in the sidebar; click away!) and have several more in the pipeline. I don't think I'll ever get to the point where designing is my full-time job (nor do I necessarily want it to be), but I've found it to be a great way to express my creativity and artistic urges, much as I used to do with pencil and paintbrush in the art studio back in high school. I have yet to have anything accepted by a major publication (fingers still crossed!), but I am enjoying the freedom of self-publishing and hope to continue with it in the new year. Several new projects are nearly ready and should be up in the first quarter of next year.

Dear readers, thanks for sticking with me for another year and sharing with me the highs (and some lows) of my love affair with all things fiber related. I wish you all a happy, healthy, and fiber-filled new year!

Monkeying Around

2011-12-29T14:10:00.000-05:00

It's my vacation this week, and the Mister, Rainbow, and I are on a short vacation to Florida (we're staying with my parents at their vacation home), so I though I should do a little fun knitting while we're here. I'm still working on the Snowy Owl sweater, of course, though that's been relegated to evening knitting, when I'm sure Rainbow is down for the count and I know I'll have at least an hour or two to focus on the charts. Something easy, small, and able to be put down and picked up at a whim (toddlers are demanding, you know) was needed, so naturally I packed my favorite 12" 2.5 mm Addi Turbo circs and a skein of sock yarn -- specifically, a skein of Socks That Rock that had been in my stash for two, maybe three, years. I wound it into a ball Tuesday night after we arrived and cast on yesterday morning.

The pattern, if you don't recognize it, is the ubiquitous Monkey (though without purls). I have quite a few pairs of these in my sock drawer, many of them in STR, but I've noticed that some of them are starting to show their age. I certainly don't have a pair in purple yet, and this skein (the colorway is the Incredible Shrinking Violet) has been patiently waiting for me to knit it up since it arrived. I love this pattern because I have knit it so many times that I practically have it memorized (though I'll admit it's been a while since I last knit it, so I did have to go look at the pattern to refresh my memory a bit). I've been working on it off and on the past two days and am already through the gusset on the first sock. At this rate, it's highly likely that I'll have a brand-new pair of socks ready to start the new year.

Tangles Ahead

2011-12-27T10:36:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the unintentional radio silence. Last week was when things really came to a head -- I'd been sick, work got unexpectedly crazy, and we were preparing to go away for Christmas -- so I had little time to knit or blog. Fortunately, things seem to be getting back to normal now, and I am officially on vacation through January 2, so I am planning on catching up on things in the next week.

I've been working mainly on finishing up my Cranford shawl, which still has several hours of work ahead, but it's quickly getting much smaller. I'll spare you another picture for now. Instead, I'll show you the newest project on the needles, which was cast on in the car on the way to Christmas.

This is the beginnings of a Snowy Owl Cardigan in madelinetosh tosh dk (the main color is Logwood, which in real life -- and good lighting -- its actually a light purple). I finished the two sleeves, which you can see up in the top right-hand corner, very quickly and got as far as the beginning of the intarsia portion on the body in the car yesterday before putting it away. I'm about to get to the point where I'll have five different sources of yarn attached at once, so I did not think it was ideal car knitting. Fortunately the intarsia section is fairly small (only about 25 rows or so), so I should be able to get through it fairly quickly, but it needs to be done when I have time to untangle and space to lay out all the yarn. This sweater is for a baby due in mid-January, and I don't think I'll have any problem at all meeting that deadline. This is why I just love knitting baby sweaters -- if only sweaters in my size would go as quickly!

Pattern Release: Scullers Socks

2011-12-19T07:09:00.000-05:00

Several years ago, back when the Mister and I lived in our old house, I started playing around with some sock yarn and swatched a stitch pattern. I jotted down a few notes in a notebook, but both it and the swatch got packed away when we moved and I promptly forgot about them.

Then, a couple months ago, I happened to pull out the notebook to make some notes about another design idea and came across my sock notes. I made a few changes, knit up a sample, wrote up the full pattern, and came up with what you see here.

These socks have a fairly simple lace pattern that is easy to memorize. The name comes from the lace pattern, as a section of it looked like a crew team rowing down the water to me. They're knit from the top down with an Eye of Partridge heel and wedge toe, but the gusset is a bit unusual.

The decrease are worked on the bottom of the heel, rather than on the sides, which results in a bit of shaping that hugs the heel. I quite like the look and the feel of this heel, and it makes me happy because I was just trying something out when I did it this way.

The socks are now available to download on Ravelry. Enjoy!

Decreasing

2011-12-12T18:57:00.000-05:00

I've gotten into a bit of a rut in my knitting since finishing my Effortless Cardigan. I've been working on a project that I can't show you, working on spinning the never-ending second bobbin of polwarth/silk laceweight, and slowly making progress on my Cranford shawl. That is the next project that's going to get my serious attention. In this incredibly horrible picture (this time of year really bums me out with the lack of light!), you can see that I've finally gotten to the midpoint and beyond.

I've finally reached the part where I decrease on every row, meaning the rows are getting shorter and therefore faster. The rows are still pretty long (I still have 100+ stitches in each row), and it's getting to the point where the shawl is a bit unwieldy to turn back and forth, but I know that if I can sustain some attention on this project -- which I intend to do -- it won't take me too long to finish up. Good thing, too, because it's been getting cold and I'd love to have this finished to wrap up in!

Effortless

2011-12-06T20:16:00.000-05:00

I've been waiting impatiently to show you my most recently completed project -- this time of year just does not work for blogging knit objects when you work full time! I had to wait a couple of days for the sweater to dry post-blocking, and then I had to wait until this weekend, when there was enough good natural light for the Mister to snap some decent shots of me in it. I think it was worth the wait, frankly, because this is my new favorite sweater.

Pattern: Effortless Cardigan by Hannah Fettig
Yarn: Madelinetosh tosh dk in Baltic, approximately 5.5 skeins
Needles: US 6 (4.0 mm) 32" Addi Turbo circs
Started/Completed: November 12/November 27
Mods: added an inch of length to the sleeves

I love, love, love this sweater. It was an easy knit (though I still managed to mess up somehow -- I missed a couple of raglan increases and had to sneak them in afterward because I didn't want to rip back, but I don't think you can see the error) and it went really quickly. Of course, that last assessment might have something to do with the fact that I knit most of the sweater over the course of my five-day Thanksgiving weekend. For the record, I don't recommend flinging yourself down a flight of stairs in order to wind up off your feet for several days just so you can knit a sweater, but it was certainly one positive in the whole mess that was the fall and the resulting sprain.

I had knit with a Madelinetosh yarn once before (with tosh sock for this shawl), but this is the first time I'd used enough for a large garment, and I must say that I am in love. The colors of this yarn just enchanted me the whole time I was knitting, and I'm really happy with the finished look of the sweater. You know how you're "supposed to" alternate skeins when you're using a hand-dyed yarn? I didn't, I'll admit it. And you'd can't tell that I didn't. This yarn is amazing. I think I am officially addicted.

Now let's talk about the sweater itself. It's a top-down raglan, knit entirely seamlessly. While I like the structure of a seamed sweater, there is a lot of appeal in a sweater that's done when you bind off the last stitch. I used the same size needle for all of the sweater, including the ribbing, which makes said ribbing nice and flow-y. I was a bit puzzled by the needle size specified in the pattern (US 9) because I'm usually a pretty on-gauge knitter and usually don't have to go up or down more than one needle size. The only explanation I have is that Hannah Fettig must be a tight knitter! I got perfect stitch gauge (and I was only one row off over four inches for row gauge) with 6's, which is what I often use for a worsted, so that was fine with me. The sweater turned out the right size, got nice and drapey after blocking, and is incredibly comfortable. What's not to love?

Like Spinning Gold

2011-12-04T13:55:00.000-05:00

My spinning has been pretty monogamous (or should that be monotonous?) lately, as I'm still working my way through the second four ounces of All Spun Up Polwarth/silk. I'm making good progress and am going to be devoting a good portion of my crafting time this week to finishing it up, but I won't bore you with another on-the-bobbin progress shot. Instead, I have a little spinning treat to share with you.

Before my friend Steven left the state, he generously bestowed upon me a bag filled with small samples of some super luxurious spinning fibers, among them a two ounce bundle of Blue Moon-dyed 50% cashmere/50% tussah silk. Now, I've spun silk before (in blends) but never cashmere, so I'll admit that I was a little intimidated by this gorgeous fiber and left it to marinate in the stash for a while because I didn't want to risk ruining (or, at the very least, wasting) it. Yesterday, though, I decided to take the bull by the horns and give it a try. Now I'm wondering why I waited so long.

It's definitely a little trickier to spin than the fiber I'm used to, but not as bad as I thought it would be. The biggest challenge, I think, has been the fact that my fiber hand is getting very warm from holding the cashmere, so I keep having to stop and let it cool off so that I don't wind up with a felted handful of fiber. I'm using my favorite Bosworth midi and doing a two ply of what I expect will be laceweight. I'm imaging that the resulting yarn will make a lovely (and very warm) lacy cowl or smoke ring when it's done, which I hope will be soon. I've decided to join the monthly spinalong in the Ravelry spindlers group, so that should be good motivation to get it done by the end of the month!

Do Some Good, Win Prizes!

2011-12-01T08:58:00.000-05:00

Today is World AIDS Day. Some of you may have heard that my friend Steven is running a little thing on his blog today to raise money for the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force. I encourage you to click over to take a look -- there are a lot of great prizes to be won in exchange for making a donation! I've already donated, but I also donated this skein of handspun to be one of the prizes:

This is Wensleydale that came from last year's Crown Mountain Farms fiber club. There are approximately 770 yards of laceweight singles in the this skein, so plenty to do a good-sized shawl. It's one of at least three skeins of handspun available as a prize, in addition to some gorgeous yarns and patterns. I encourage you to click over to see a slide show of all the prizes and get the details on how to win.

Did That Really Happen?

2011-11-29T19:44:00.003-05:00

I've done plenty of speed knitting in the past, but I don't think I've ever finished as adult sweater as quickly as I did my Effortless Cardigan. I finished up the ribbing on the front bands and collar and wove in the last of the ends on Sunday night, meaning my official start-to-finish time was a mere 16 days. I also didn't intend to participate in NaKniSweMo, but it appears I did indeed knit a sweater in the month of November. Pretty impressive, no? I'm not sure I would have gotten it done quite so fast if it hadn't been for the ankle sprain, as probably two-thirds of the sweater got knit while I was recuperating, but I don't think it would have taken me all that much longer had I only had my normal knitting time to work on it.

Last night the sweater went in for a nice, long lukewarm bath with some Soak, and it's now drying (slowly, no doubt) on a mesh drying rack up in the stash room. It should -- fingers crossed! -- be dry by this weekend, when it's supposed to be nice but cold, meaning it'll be perfect weather for a proper photo shoot. In the meantime, here's a sneaky peek:

I was counting on the yarn to grow and stretch when it got wet (it is superwash, after all), and it appears to have done the trick. I really want this sweater to be nice and drapey.

I have some more baby knitting to do soon, but the next baby isn't due until the end of January, so I have a bit of time. (I need to find a few yards of a compatible yarn for the owl of the planned sweater anyway.) So I am returning to my Cranford shawl for some relatively mindless knitting that I can do while elevating my ankle. It's grown a bit since you last saw it, though it's still not quite halfway done.

This thing is going to be a monster when it's complete, but it'll be so nice and warm and cozy!

Black (and Blue) Friday

2011-11-25T22:38:00.015-05:00

My ankle is slowly getting better (as evidenced by the really interesting colors that are appearing on it), but I am still mostly out of commission, which means that I am getting a lot of knitting done. I have to say that this is not the way I hoped to get in this much knitting time over the holiday weekend, but at least I don't feel as guilty for spending as much time with my yarn and needles as I have. The Mister has had to take over most of the child care and cooking responsibilities (and has been doing a great job, I might add), so for me to feel somewhat useful, I've had my needles in hand most of the day. Remember what my Effortless Cardigan looked like shortly after the injury occurred? Here it is now:

The first sleeve is complete and the second is roughly halfway done -- it should take just a couple more hours to finish. Then all that's left to do is the ribbing on the front bands and around the collar, which might be mind-numbingly boring, but at least I know it will be less so than the ribbing of a certain recently finished sweater. If I keep knitting at the rate I have been, this might even be done by the end of the weekend. At the very least, I should be able to finish it up this week.

I did manage to get out of the house for a bit today; my parents were nice enough to drop me off at my LYS so I could visit and knit for a bit while they went to a funeral. I took advantage of the store's Black Friday pajama day sale (10% off if you wore your PJs, which I have been doing anyway for the sake of comfort) to pick up two more skeins of tosh DK for a baby sweater for a gift. The colorway is Logwood, which I think is a subtle but sufficiently girly purple shade.

iPhone photo -- it's much prettier in real life

I need some scraps for the intarsia parts of the sweater, and a Raveler was kind enough to send me some leftovers of a skein of Fig for the branches that arrived in today's mail. I still need about 10 yards of a light color for the owl, but I have some time to search for that. I am going to finish my own sweater before I start on this one!

Unintended Knitting Time

2011-11-23T14:37:00.000-05:00

I had grand plans for today. I'd taken a day off from work and was planning to take the toddler to daycare so that I could run a couple of quick errands and then spend several hours at my LYS, knitting on their couch.

Unfortunately, that was not the way the day went. First, Rainbow had one heck of a meltdown over no apparent reason (it started with toilet paper and continued when it was time to get dressed). I finally managed to get her dressed, get her coat on, and get her shoes on and was attempting to take her out to the car while balancing her on one side and an umbrella on the other when I slipped on the wet back door steps and went splat on our brick back walkway. Thankfully Rainbow was fine, though I think she was a little scared at what had just happened, but my right leg had twisted under me at a strange angle and I couldn't get up on my own. If this had happened any other day, I would have been in real trouble, but the Mister had decided to take the day off, too, so I was able to yell for him to come help us.

He got us both back inside, got me set up on the couch with a package of frozen vegetables on my ankle, and then took Rainbow to daycare as planned. Then he came to get me and take me to the urgent care center. The prognosis is mostly good -- nothing is broken -- but I have what the doctor described as a "severe strain," so I'm supposed to stay off the ankle and keep it elevated for at least a couple of days. So now here I am:

I've settled nicely on our bed with an extra pillow under my foot, an ice pack on my ankle, crutches nearby should I need them, and my Effortless Cardigan. I'm making lots of progress, too -- I have about three inches left to knit on the body before I start the bottom ribbing. Looks like I'll be getting to a finished sweater a lot sooner than I was expecting, given that there's not much else I'm going to be able to do for the next couple of days.

For those of you in the States, I hope you have a very happy Thanksgiving tomorrow -- one with a little less excitement than mine!

One Bobbin Full

2011-11-20T20:18:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I had a spinning post on a Sunday because I've been working on the same project for almost a month. It's not quite done, but at least I've reached a milestone in the process. Here's a full bobbin, holding 4 oz. of extremely thin (40+ wpi) singles of All Spun Up polwarth/silk

This bobbin is resting at the moment until I figure out what to do next. I have another 4 oz. of this same fiber/colorway, and originally I thought I'd spin that up the same way and ply the two together for one really enormous laceweight skein. But now I'm having second thoughts, not only because it'll take me another month (maybe) to spin the second bobbin of singles but also because I'm not sure what I'd do with 1,600-2,00 yards of laceweight. So I may end up chain plying this one and splitting the other 4 oz. in two to spin a laceweight with that. Or not. Any suggestions are appreciated.

In the meantime, to take a break from spinning so thin, I got out this month's Crown Mountain Farms shipment (4 oz. of Icelandic top) while Rainbow took her nap this afternoon and spun up two bobbins' worth in a ridiculously short amount of time. Here's what it looked like before:

This was my first time spinning this particular breed, and it was interesting -- definitely on the hairy side, though not as unpleasant as the Lincoln I spun several months ago. My singles are about fingering weight, and it looks like it'll ply up to about DK weight.

I'm excited that this fiber went so quickly, because I'm really trying to make a dent in my stash; my fiber stash, like my yarn stash, has gotten a bit out of control. That didn't seem to stop me, though, from picking up some more yesterday at Indie Knit and Spin.

Falkland from CosySpins

Falkland from Gwen Erin

Falkland is one of my favorite fibers, and I haven't spun any in a while, so I'm looking forward to getting at these soon!

Adaptation

2011-11-17T20:07:00.000-05:00

Progress has continued on my Effortless Cardigan. I put the sleeves on scrap yarn earlier in the week and last night, at knit night, I made enough progress on the body to be ready to start the waist shaping. There are three sets of decreases and, a bit later, three sets of increases, and then I basically work straight for many inches until I'm ready to do the ribbing at the bottom. Effortless certainly is a good way to describe this sweater! It's a bit slow going because the rows are so long, but as it's just stockinette, I don't have to think much about what I'm doing. I'm hoping to get in a decent amount of knitting time in over Thanksgiving weekend so that I can get closer to my goal of having the sweater done in time for Christmas.

For my lunchtime knitting, I've been working on adapting the colorwork pattern in my Tiled In Cowl (which, incidentally, was recently accepted for the Knit Picks IDP program!) for a hat after getting several requests for one on Ravelry. I'm working on the sample/prototype for the women's version right now with the rest of the skein of Chroma I used for the cowl.

Please excuse the weird blue tint from my iPhone camera

The hat version starts with a similar hem but has a shorter repeat of the colorwork pattern. The top will be a simple rounded beanie-style top. There will be a men's version as well, worked slightly larger and in more "manly" colors for the sample, and I'm planning a coordinating set of fingerless mitts and/or mittens.

I am also planning my next baby project for a little girl due in late January. I've already bought and printed out the pattern for this adorable sweater that I'd spotted about a month or two ago when it was in testing. It has some intarsia, but now that I've conquered that particular technique, the only thing standing in my way is finding the yarn. My LYS has a Black Friday sale, so I'm planning on picking up a couple of skeins of Tosh DK, which just happens to be the yarn specified in the pattern. I'm starting this baby off right with good yarn!

My Turn

2011-11-14T19:54:00.000-05:00

After several months of knitting primarily for others, I decided that it was high time to do something for me. On Friday night, once I'd gotten Rainbow to bed, I settled down to catch up on Grey's Anatomy on the DVR and cast on for my Effortless Cardigan. I'd been itching to cast on for weeks but had kept the bag of tosh DK next to my bed in order to entice me to finish everything I needed to on the obligation list.

I didn't get very far that night, but on Saturday the Mister and I had to go to a wedding about 30 miles away and had a two-hour break between the ceremony and reception, so I took my knitting in the car with me and made good progress.

I'm about eight rows away from splitting for the sleeves, so I'm definitely moving right along. I don't think the sweater will be done in time for Thanksgiving, but Christmas seems like a reasonable goal. I am really glad I picked this colorway now that I've knit a good portion of the sweater; originally, I was debating between this one (Baltic) and Tart. Opinion was split among the ladies at my LYS, but ultimately I decided to go with the blue because I thought it would work better with my wardrobe. I still think I may need to get some Tart for something else, but I don't regret choosing Baltic for this sweater. I know I am going to love this sweater when it's done.

So Nice, I Did It Twice

2011-11-10T19:47:00.000-05:00

There are many patterns I've knit more than once, although usually there's a break between duplication. Not so with the most recent projects off my needles.

As I've mentioned before, Rainbow has recently become interested in wearing hats, so to take advantage of that situation and to deal with her volatile (at times) pickiness, I've been working on a bunch of options for her so that she always has a choice. I found several cute patterns on Ravelry and have been doing about one a week. The latest is this one, which I finished while I was home sick yesterday.

The pattern is All Ears, a free download on Ravelry. It's a very easy, very fast knit -- essentially, it's just a tube that is kitchenered at the top and then the corners are gathered to make the ears. I had most of a skein of Cascade 220 Superwash leftover from the "Electric Eggplant" hat and used it for this one, knowing how popular purple is in this house. I can report that it was a big success and was worn to school this morning, where it was shown off to her teacher, who is also a knitter.

The hat turned out so cute that I decided to use up what was left of the handspun I used for the Baby Sophisticate and make a matching hat. It took maybe two hours from start to finish -- and I say maybe because I was pretty out of it for most of the day, so it was done in fits and starts between naps. Regardless, it was a fast and easy knit and I think it'll be a hit. I even have some of the yarn leftover!

For a Sophisticated Baby

2011-11-08T19:45:00.000-05:00

The striped blanket I recently finished was just the first of the handknit gifts for a particular baby. Soon after binding off for that project, I cast on for a sweater. In just a handful of knitting sessions, it was done. (I just love it when a project goes that quickly!)

Pattern: Baby Sophisticate by Linden Down
Yarn: my handspun superwash merino from Crown Mountain Farms in Come Together
Needles: US 8 (5.0 mm) ChiaoGoo Red Lace circulars
Started/Completed: October 30/November 3
Mods: shortened the sleeves by one inch

I will readily admit that I did not swatch for this sweater; frankly, I usually don't for baby sweaters. (The way I see it, babies come in all shapes and sizes, but their sweaters usually aren't very big, and in the time it would take me to swatch, wash the swatch, and wait for it to dry so I could measure it, I could already be halfway done with the sweater.) Generally I err on the side of being too large, because a sweater that is too big can always be worn later when the kid grows into it, but a sweater that is too small won't get worn at all. I selected my needle size using a trick I think I read on Ravelry years ago: I doubled a length of my yarn and pulled it through the holes in my needle gauge until I found a hole that was filled comfortably by the yarn without having to yank it through. As it happened, that method gave me the same needle size specified in the pattern.

I decided to make the larger size after calculating the rough chest circumference using the given gauge to allow just a little more room; if the baby ends up being on the slender side, there will still be a little positive ease to allow for layering. I made the length of the sleeves an inch shorter than specified, though, because babies generally don't need extra long sleeves. The body does look a little long in comparison, but I don't think an extra bit of fabric can hurt for a winter baby.

I'm still kind of amazed at how fast this project went (though it's probably something to do with the fact that I'm used to knitting things at a much smaller gauge). I cast on for it on a Sunday night after putting Rainbow to bed and had completed the raglan increases and put the sleeve stitches on waste yarn by the time I went to bed. I think somewhere in the span I also took a night off from it to do some spinning, so it probably only took about four evenings to do the whole thing. That's a winning project in my book -- now I know I can whip this one up if I need a baby gift in a hurry! The pattern is a free one and is pretty well written; if you've done a top-down raglan before, you'll know exactly what you're doing. The one thing that I really liked about it was the directions for picking up for the button bands and collar; because the first stitch of every row is slipped, there's no counting to do -- you just pick up one stitch in every slipped edge stitch and one for every stitch along the cast on edge at the neck. Easy peasy!

So now this baby has a blanket and a sweater. There's handspun leftover, too, so it looks like he's going to be getting a hat as well!

Needles On Fire

2011-11-03T19:40:00.000-04:00

Remember how my knitting mojo went AWOL for a while there several months ago, back when all I wanted to do was spin? Well, it's most definitely back. After finishing the blanket last Friday night, I was positively itching to cast on for some new projects.

The first thing that had to get done was a baby hat that I'm taking to a shower this weekend. The mom-to-be specifically asked for a "fruit hat," and while there's more knitting to be done for this particular baby (who is not due until the end of January), this was an easy project to start and finish.

This is the ever-popular Berry Baby Hat, which worked up in literally three hours or so using a small amount of Cascade 220 Superwash and some scraps of Dream in Color Classy (in Go Go Grassy) leftover from my FLS. The color is a little off in this photo (this time of year and the decided lack of sunlight when I'm able to take pictures makes capturing color accurately a bit difficult), but I think it could pass for some sort of berry. I like to think of it as "electric eggplant." I used size 7 (4.5 mm) needles and followed the pattern exactly, then blocked it out just a bit when I washed it so it won't be too snug. (Incidentally, Rainbow found and tried on her hat this morning and was still able to fit in on her 19" head, so I probably don't have to worry too much about the size.)

As soon as I was finished weaving in the ends on the gift hat, I picked up some yarn leftover from Rainbow's Roo and cast on for another hat for her. This one has a really interesting construction -- it starts with a lining that goes around the head at ear level, uses short rows to form the ear flaps, and then attaches the lining with a joining round for an extra-warm double thickness. I used the recommended needle sizes but started the crown decreases an inch earlier than called for in the pattern after trying it on Rainbow and seeing that another inch would make it fall over her eyes. I omitted the dinosaur spikes, but I may still add the straps on the ear flaps to have the option of tying it on, and I'm thinking of getting out some yarn scraps to do some embroidery on it so it's not so boring. Rainbow clearly doesn't care what else I do to it, because she has been excitedly wearing it to school this week

This blurry iPhone photo is the only one she would let me take.

Finally, on Sunday night, I cast on for a Baby Sophisticate for the recipient of the striped blanket. I am using some of my handspun for this sweater, and it is knitting up so lovely. It's going very quickly, too! I've finished the body and roughly half of the first sleeve, and at the rate it's been going, it should only take me another night or two to finish up the whole shebang.

Lest you think I've been spending all my time knitting for children, I must also tell you that I found some additional time over the weekend to swatch for my Effortless Cardigan (and then reswatch on Monday night when I measured and found that my gauge was way off). I had to go down to 6's, but my gauge is nearly perfect -- 19 stitches and 27 rows over 4 inches. All I can say is that Hannah Fettig must be a tight knitter if that's the gauge she gets on 9's, because I know I am not a loose knitter!

21 Is the Magic Number

2011-11-01T17:55:00.000-04:00

I know I've been complaining about this blanket for a while, but now I can say with certainty that my kvetching is over -- the blanket is complete!

Pattern: Rainbow Chain Carriage Blanket (Raverlry link) by Erika Flory, Knotions spring 2009
Yarn: Berroco Vintage (50% nylon, 40% wool, 10% nylon), in Mochi (1.5 skeins) and Dark Denim, Bilberry, and Misty (0.5 skeins each)
Needles: US 7 (4.5 mm)
Started/Completed: August 13/October 27
Dimensions: 25" wide x 28.5" long
Mods: followed Courtney's changes (see below)

I didn't realize how involved this blanket was when I bought the yarn and cast on. I wasn't a good knitter and didn't read through the pattern before I started, and so I didn't realize right away that it involved intarsia. Now, I hadn't done any intarsia in years because the first (and last!) time I tried it, it seemed way too fiddly. I realize now that the instructions I was using then were way more involved than they needed to be and that all that was needed was a simple twisting of the yarns. The difficulty lies in keeping an even tension, and really, with all the stranded colorwork I've done since then, tension issues aren't really an issue anymore. So I'm no longer afraid of intarsia. Go me!

If you click over to the pattern, you'll notice that my blanket doesn't look that much like the original, and that's because I pretty much copied Courtney's blanket -- to the point of asking her for her mods -- with the exception of the colors I used. Instead of the double chain in each stripe, there is one chain that is centered in the stripe. I actually like this version better. I think it's a little cleaner and the stripes of the background color are a little easier to see. I also opted for only three colors for the stripes, rather than a rainbow. The recipient specifically requested a blanket in blue(s), and I thought a few shades would add a little more interest than just one. Changing colors so frequently did mean a lot of ends to weave in, but I did that as I went, which was a huge relief when I bound off and had only a couple of yarn tails left to weave in.

I picked this project up and put it down over the course of many weeks, so the start-to-finish time isn't really an accurate representation of the time it took to complete. I'd say that each stripe took an hour, more or less, to complete, including the time I spent detangling my skeins. When I started, I knew that I wanted it to be rectangular but didn't have an exact number of stripes in my head; I figured I'd just keep knitting until it looked long enough. In the end, 21 turned out to be the magic number. A little bit of blocking magic helped to make it just a bit bigger, and now it's a size that should still be good through the toddler years.

Yarn selection for this blanket was also heavily influenced by Courtney's version. I wanted something washable with at least some wool in it, and the Vintage certainly fit the bill. I am usually not a fan of acrylic, but this yarn feels more like a superwash wool -- soft and bouncy without the telltale acrylic "squeak." I enjoyed knitting with it, and it was certainly economical and produced a baby-friendly blanket. I have enough leftover that I can probably make a small sweater or some accessories with it, too.

Because I've been complaining about this project so much, I feel I should tell you a little bit about the recipient. The mom-to-be is the older sister of my childhood best friend, so in a way she's been like a big sister to me my whole life. To be perfectly honest, she's also someone I never quite expected to settle down; she's always someone I thought of as living the glamorous life. But she is now married and expecting a baby boy right around Christmas, and I couldn't be happier for her. We have spent Christmas with her family every year for at least the last decade, and we have been told by the mom-to-be that everything will be as per usual this year, whether or not the baby has arrived!

Finishing this blanket seems to have kick-started my knitting mojo, so expect to see a slew of other finished projects in the near future!

Not Seasonal

2011-10-30T19:51:00.000-04:00

This week's spin provides a bit of spring for this very dreary and depressing autumn weekend (would you believe it actually snowed here yesterday?!). This was the October shipment for the Crown Mountain Farms fiber club, 4 oz. of wool that is called Heinz 57 -- a name, like Falkland, that represents sheep from a particular geographical region rather than a specific breed. In this case, the sheep came from the Northeast region of the U.S., if I'm remembering correctly. Despite the fact that it was very clearly a fall shipment, the colorway, Sumer, was a cheerful, springlike surprise.

I decided to go with my usual for spinning this -- a three-ply fingering weight. I spun the singles very fine, with the aid of my miniSpinner, and plied them up shortly thereafter. The fiber reminded me of corriedale while spinning it; it wasn't as soft as a merino or a targhee, but it had a fair amount of crimp and almost a stickiness to it and wasn't unpleasant to spin. It also poofed up a bit in the wash, resulting in a somewhat disappointing yardage but a very satisfactory yarn.

My 4 oz. yielded approximately 313 yards; I had hoped for close to 400. I'm unsure what to make with this, as the yardage isn't enough for socks or probably anything but a very small shawl, but I wouldn't call it next-to-the-skin soft, so a cowl is probably out. Perhaps it'll become a hat or mittens when combined with another yarn.

Regardless of what it might or might not become, I am quite happy to just look at the finished yarn. These greens are so inspiring, especially now that it gets dark so early and it's usually so gloomy even when the sun is out. I may just keep the skein by my bedside for those dark winter months when I crave a little green!

Just About

2011-10-27T19:50:00.000-04:00

Come hell or high water, the striped baby blanket will be done tonight! I sat down with it and an episode of Masterpiece Mystery last night and managed to get through a couple more stripes, so at this point I have about a stripe and a half and the end border to go. Now that the end is in sight, I am very glad that I've been weaving in ends as I go, because I think it would be very disheartening to bind off and discover I had another evening's worth of work to do before it was really and truly finished. I'll have just a handful of ends to weave in when I bind off, and then all this blanket will need is a nice bath in some Soak before it's laid out on some drying racks to dry. I'm rather excited by the fact that I will have finished it almost two months before it's needed, but there is still at least one other thing to knit for this baby before I'm done, so I'm not crossing the recipient off my list just yet.

Once the blanket is done, I will finally sit down and swatch for my Effortless Cardigan, though I'll have to be patient with that as well while I wait for the swatch to dry. Assuming I can get gauge and don't have to reswatch too much (or at all), I should be able to cast on this weekend.

More immediately, I need to get going on some cold weather accessories for Rainbow, as the temperature has been dropping here and the kids are still going outside to play during the day when the weather is cooperative. She finally consented to wearing the handspun Aviatrix hat I made her last year on Tuesday (and was apparently quite excited to put it on again when the group went outside in the afternoon), but the novelty seems to have worn off because she would not let me fasten the strap this morning.

So I need to some up with some other alternatives. I have a couple of skeins of yarn leftover from her purple sweater that I think would be perfect for a hat and/or mittens; considering purple is her color of the moment, there's actually a chance she might choose to wear a purple hat if I made one. Last year, she absolutely loved a fleece-lined earflap hat from the Gap, so I'm thinking of doing something with a similar look. This one that I found on Ravelry seems like it will work, though I'll be leaving the spikes off and perhaps using pompoms rather than the ties. This is, of course, subject to the toddler's approval, so we shall see if I will actually be knitting it.

Still Striping

2011-10-25T19:47:00.000-04:00

With much cooler weather in the forecast (I even heard the S word mentioned for the weekend), I am just itching to start my Effortless Cardigan. I'm being a good knitter, though, and focusing on my obligation knitting before I start another big project for myself -- specifically, the striped blanket for the December baby.

Were it not for the fact that this blanket has three balls of yarn attached to it at any given time and ends to weave in every 10 rows or so, I have no doubt that I'd have been done with it long ago. But, because of all those details, I can only work on it when I can spread the yarn around me, which means the knitting is not getting done in fits and starts but rather in occasional bursts of sustained knitting time. I can do a stripe in about an hour, so I'm managing to get in about two stripes in a good evening's worth of knitting time.

So what's taking so long? It seems that I'm going to need a lot more stripes than I thought I would at the outset; I'm in the middle of my 18th stripe now and probably need 21 (maybe even 24) before I feel it's long enough to do the end border. The blanket is about 24 inches wide, so I'd like it to be a little longer than that. I am hopeful that I can have it done by the weekend, provided I can focus enough to work on it and only it in the evenings. (I'll readily admit that some pretty fiber and my spinning wheel might seduce me for an evening or two, though.)

All Spun Up Polwarth/Silk

In the Skies

2011-10-23T19:51:00.000-04:00

More than three years ago, shortly after learning to spin and getting my wheel, I placed what would be the first of many orders from Crown Mountain Farms. I can clearly remember looking through all the colorways and taking a pretty good length of time to decide which two to order. I finally decided and placed the order, and when my two bundles of fiber arrived, one got spun up right away. The other, however, sat in my stash until a couple of weeks ago, when I decided it was high time I spin it up. So here is In the Skies, 8 oz. of superwash merino, spun into a three-ply worsted weight.

When I started spinning this, I was intending to use the resulting yarn for a baby gift, but I found myself growing so enamored of it while spinning that I changed my plans and decided to keep it for myself. At only about 366 yards, it wouldn't have gone too far anyway, but now I have to figure out what it will be for me. Maybe a hat and mitten set? Small shawl? Infinity cowl? For now, as with most of my handspun, I'm just going to enjoy squeezing and petting the skein.

The "Puhple" Sweater

2011-10-20T19:58:00.000-04:00

I know I've been promising to show you this sweater for some time now, so please forgive the wait. I hope you'll think it's worth it, because I think this may just be the best sweater I've ever knit.

Pattern: Roo by Kate Gilbert, Twist Collective summer 2009
Yarn: Knit Picks Swish Worsted (100% superwash merino) in Eggplant, a little less than 7 skeins
Needles: US 7 (4.5 mm) Addi Turbos
Mods: different gauge (see below); closures
Recipient: Rainbow
Started/Completed: September 13/October 8

This sweater was such fun to knit. The time span is a bit misleading, because I was working on this in between several other projects. The actual knitting time was pretty reasonable. I did the back first and it took the longest mainly because it took the course of knitting the back to get used to reading the charts (I'm usually a very pro-chart person, but when there's garter stitch and stockinette in the same chart, it takes my brain some time to get used to it). The fronts took maybe three evenings total to knit, and I knit the sleeves at the same time over the course of a weekend. The hood was the last piece, and it probably took me just a few hours, with about an hour or two to graft the top and seam the rest of the sweater. Had I been working on this project exclusively, I probably could have finished it in a couple of weeks.

My only really big mod to this pattern was in gauge. When I swatched, I discovered that I probably would have had to go up to a US 9 to get gauge, and, in my opinion, the resulting fabric would have been way to loose for this yarn. Moreover, I really liked the fabric I was getting on size 7 needles, which was about 18 stitches over 4 inches, or about half a stitch more per inch than specified. With Rainbow's chest measurement of 20.5 inches, I would have normally chosen to knit the 22" size; with my difference in gauge, however, I elected to knit the 26" size knowing it would come out smaller than that. I knew I could also count on the tendency of a superwash yarn to stretch if I needed to get some additional room in the sweater when it was done. As it happens, after blocking, the sweater fits perfectly. There's a little bit of room so she can layer a shirt underneath as well as grow a bit, but it's not so big that it overpowers her.

The other mod was in the closures. I really wanted to be able to throw the whole sweater in the wash, so I was worried about using the leather closures specified in the pattern (not to mention that I wasn't sure I would be able to source the materials necessary). I'd seen several projects on Ravelry that used a twisty I-cord loop with a decorative ending instead, so I decided this was the way to go. I made two 12" lengths of I-cord and sewed the ends into place, leaving a loop for buttons. I'd originally intended to use toggles, but on a trip to my LYS, Rainbow herself found these purple buttons that were amazingly a match for the sweater. (I really have to remember to take her from now on when I go button shopping, because I'd missed seeing those same buttons when I'd looked on my own a couple of days earlier!)

The color is most accurate in this photo

As to my overall assessment of the pattern? It's a winner. I had made sure to find the errata for the pattern before I started but, to my surprise and delight, they'd already been corrected in the download. The pattern was easy to follow and very clearly worded, and the sweater itself was relatively easy to execute (simple shaping, not lots of "at the same time"s, etc.). The cables are clever but very intuitive, so once you've done a couple of pieces, you know what to expect. If I have one complaint, it's about the number of charts that are used. I realize this probably couldn't be helped, as different charts are needed for each piece, but it made things a little annoying at times when I had to find a place to spread the charts around me so I could see it all. I did get a little confused from time to time when working on the hood, as it seemed to me that the two charts should have been on opposite sides of the page, but I think that was just another brain adjustment thing, because I had it straight by the time I was about halfway through the hood. I was very thankful that the charts were fairly large, because by the end of the day my eyes aren't always so good.

As you can tell from the pictures, Rainbow was completely thrilled with her sweater. "Puhple" is her favorite color at the moment, so she was very excited to put it on. She wore it out and about all day last Saturday, when there was just a little chill in the air and a little extra something was needed. I have a feeling she's going to want to wear it a lot in the weeks to come, and that is certainly the biggest compliments I could get as a knitter.

Can you tell we had some fun with this photo shoot?

Tiled In

2011-10-15T15:57:00.000-04:00

When the Mister and I were redoing our bathroom last year, we spent a lot of time looking at tiles -- tiles for the floor, tiles for the shower walls, tiles to cap the other tiles, etc. The tiles we ultimately picked for the floor came in a set pattern that reminded me very much of the floors in the old bathrooms of my childhood home and the home of my best friend growing up, who lived across the street. It was nothing fancy, just a simple geometric composition of rectangles and squares, but it was so appealing to me. Naturally, when I sketching out some ideas for some stranded colorwork patterns, it made its way into my sketches.

About the same time, I'd received an order from Knit Picks with several skeins of their new Chroma yarn, which has long color repeats with gradual transitions. It was only a matter of time before the tile pattern and the yarn came together to form the Tiled In Cowl.

This cowl is worked in two colors, but because of the color transitions in the Chroma, it looks like there are many more. (It looks just as nice in two solid colors, too.) The top and bottom are sewn hems that are achieved through a provisional cast on at the beginning (which is later undone and worked together with the stitches on the needle) and grafting the live stitches at the end.

Worked in a light fingering weight yarn, this makes a cozy yet lightweight accessory -- one that I've discovered also makes a cozy headband in a pinch! It's worked in the round with minimal finishing, and the pattern includes a photo tutorial for sewing down the live stitches at the end.

I've been working on this pattern for quite some time, so I'm very excited to share it with you today. It's now available for download on Ravelry.

I can also finally share these pictures with you -- when I was trying to take a few more shots for the pattern, a certain someone wanted to get in on the action.

Done with Love

2011-10-11T20:20:00.000-04:00

First things first: Rainbow's Roo is done, has been washed and blocked, and has had buttons selected (by the girl herself, when we stopped by my LYS yesterday on our day off). All that's left to do is some I-cord closures and a proper photo shoot, which I'm hoping will happen this weekend when the weather's supposed to be nice but a little on the chilly side.

Since finishing that up, I've been focusing on the next baby item -- the blanket. For as much as I love stranded colorwork, I don't really care much for intarsia, which makes it rather surprising that I'm knitting this particular blanket. I have three skeins of yarn attached at any given time and I have ends to weave in every 10 or so rows. This blanket is proof positive that I have a lot of love for the recipient (well, for the recipient's mom anyway).

The mom-to-be is the older sister of my childhood best friend and I've known her my whole life; she's been almost a big sister to me, too. I'm willing to deal with tangled yarn skeins and lots of ends for her. I'm being very good about weaving in my ends as I go so there's less finishing to do when I get to the end, and I'm discovering that intarsia isn't actually as bad as I thought. The first time I did it, I think I was making it more difficult than it had to be. I still prefer to carry two colors at the same time if I can, but I'm no longer disregarding a cute pattern if it involves intarsia.

I did take a wee break from the tangling over the weekend to do a test knit of some very sweet toddler-sized felted slippers.

Trust me when I tell you that these are much cuter in person (and in natural light, for that matter). These knit up in about four hours total and used less than a skein each of two colors -- Hollyberry and Rhubarb -- of some very old Knit Picks Merino Style that I found in my stash. I ran them through my front loader for two cycles and got them to mostly felt, though I'll have to hand felt a couple of spots here and there. Rainbow has tried them on and they fit perfectly, so I'll also have to go in search of some puffy paint to make some grippers on the bottom. Fun!

That Darn Cardigan

2011-10-06T19:45:00.001-04:00

You've all heard me talk about this cardigan for so long that I'm sure it'll come as a surprise to some of you that I haven't yet shown you the fully finished item. I've been procrastinating about it, but today that comes to an end.

Pattern: Essential Cardigan by Laura Grutzeck, summer 2010 Interweave Knits
Yarn: Elsebeth Lavold Silky Tweed (40% silk, 30% cotton, 20% merino, 10% rayon) in the very descriptive colorway 14
Needles: US 4 (3.5 mm) and US 5 (3.75 mm) Addi Turbo circs
Started/Completed: April 25, 2011/September 4, 2011
Mods: neckline (see below)

I decided to knit this cardigan primarily because it seemed like the simple, classic sweater that I always reach for -- it goes with almost everything, always looks good, and is an easy knit. Unfortunately, that simplicity does not always make for a good project. The pattern itself was very clear and easy to follow, and I found no errors, but I discovered that I had a really hard time sticking with this project. Stockinette the round I can do forever, but stockinette worked flat can bore me to tears sometimes. The big issue, though, seemed to be the 1x1 garter ribbing. It was so tedious, especially when I got to the collar/buttonbands and had to work a couple hundred stitches in 1x1 rib every other row. I think that last piece took me as long to knit as the five component pieces did.

That said, the finished sweater is as I had hoped. It fits well, it's comfortable, and it fits with my wardrobe. I've already worn it a couple of times when the weather was such that I needed just a little extra layer. This is by no means a winter sweater, but it's great for these early days of fall and will be great in those early days of spring when we're all sick of thick wool sweaters and heavy winter coats.

The only modification I made (and really a slight one at that) involves the stitches at the back of the neck that are left when the shoulder stitches are bound off. The pattern calls for keeping those stitches live and placing them on waste yarn. However, I knew that I would be picking up stitches for the button bands (which are worked in conjunction with the collar) and I wanted all the stitches in that first row to look the same, so I bound the back neck stitches off at the end of the back piece.

If there's one disappointment I have about this sweater, it's the yarn. I picked it mainly because it was the right weight and I had a ton of it in my stash from a good WEBS sale years ago (and thus I felt guilty that I hadn't used it yet), but I don't think it's the best fit for this pattern. The high silk and rayon content means that the knit fabric is very drapey, and in the case of my sweater, that means that it's stretching out of shape a bit as I wear it, particularly around the buttonholes (I might have to go in and reinforce them at some point because of this). The drape factor is not entirely an issue, as it makes for a really comfy sweater, but I was getting a little annoyed when I wore it to work last week and kept noticing every time I went to the bathroom that my set-in sleeve cap was sitting in the middle of my bicep. I doubt anyone notices this kind of thing but me, and as no one asked me if I'd made the sweater at work (where they know I knit my own sweaters), I'd say it's probably not an obvious flaw. The other issue with the yarn is the color; I think the tweedy flecks, though I love them in the yarn, obscure the ribbing a bit, and for all the aggravation that ribbing caused me, I want it to be seen.

I guess this sweater is a good exercise in the process. I ended up with a garment that fits well, but in retrospect, I would change a number of things. I should also add that I was a good girl and did several swatches, and while the swatches themselves were drapey, they in no way could have prepared me for how drapey the full finished garment is. Live and learn, I suppose. At least I've come a long way since my first sweater.

In the Hood

2011-10-04T19:44:00.000-04:00

I've been working on Rainbow's Roo, and I am quite literally in the hood now. It's amazing how quickly it's knit up -- sometimes I forget just how fast baby and children's garments are! I knit the sleeves over the weekend (I did them both at the same time to make absolutely sure they were identical), and last night I grafted the shoulder seams and started the hood. I would estimate that I have two to three nights' worth of work left to do on this before it's done, or at least in one piece. I still need to do a little digging around to find a tutorial for frog closures made from I-cord, because I am not going to do the leather triangle toggle thing called for in the pattern. I really want this to be completely washable!

Yes, I'm fully aware of how bad this photo is. Camera wasn't cooperating.

While the slew of obligation baby knits has not let up at all, I've decided that I really don't want to neglect myself in the meantime. On Saturday, I stopped by my LYS as usual and brought with me a couple of gift cards I'd been saving up. Those, combined with a frequent shopper reward, got me a great deal on a sweater's worth of Madelinetosh Tosh DK that will become an Effortless Cardigan for moi. I figure that a simple, straightforward top-down raglan would be easy enough for me to pick up and put down as needed but still finish in a reasonable amount of time (read: soon enough to actually wear it this sweater season). I sat for a while with three colors in front of me but ultimately decided on Baltic -- when it comes down to it, I can't say no to a vibrant blue.

I'm really excited to get this out and cast on, but I am making myself finish at least Rainbow's Roo (and maybe another baby item) before I do.

Thick and Quick

2011-10-02T11:31:00.000-04:00

After spending all summer spinning thin yarns, I'd forgotten how fast and satisfying spinning a thicker yarn can be. The yarn I have to show you today is the result of exactly three days of spinning (and you know that I don't mean spinning all day for three days but rather for two or three hours on a given day). I knew I wanted to spin up some worsted weight-ish yarn to knit a baby sweater, so I went stash diving and came up with this bump of superwash merino from Crown Mountain Farms that I'd bought at least a year ago when they were having one of their big sales. This colorway is Come Together.

I spun up the singles on my miniSpinner on Saturday and Sunday and plied on Monday night. I ended up with about 332.5 yards of heavy worsted/aran weight (~11 wpi).

This is destined to become a Baby Sophisticate for a baby boy due in late December (the same intended recipient of the striped blanket I've been working on). I've been so inspired by how easy this was to spin that I pulled out some more CMF sw merino that has been in my stash since my first year of spinning and have started a similar yarn. If this keeps up, I'm going to go through a significant portion of my stash in a relatively short amount of time!

Moving On

2011-09-29T20:17:00.000-04:00

A while back, I was in the midst of a flurry of designing stuff -- sketching, charting, swatching, and sample knitting. That has died down a bit as I've sent off several submissions and been caught up with obligatory knitting (Rainbow's Roo and all the baby knits). Yesterday, I got my official rejection from Knitty for a pattern I'd submitted for the Deep Fall issue but that had gotten eaten by their e-mail spam filter so I'd had to resend it. I'm certainly disappointed, but that particular pattern is one I worked on really hard for several months, so I'm going to submit it elsewhere once I find what I think is the perfect fit. I still have a kids/baby sweater idea that I want to work on, but it requires some serious time with Excel to figure out the grading, so that is on the backburner for a while.

In the meantime, I decided that I wanted to knit something for myself in between all the must-do projects I've got going, so I picked up a skein of Cascade Eco Wool at my LYS last Saturday and on Sunday evening, with a notebook beside me to jot down what I was doing, I got to work on figuring out my Cranford shawl. It's turning out exactly as I wanted it to.

The gauge is fairly dense right now, but I know I'm going to be able to block this out to be big, drapey, and very cozy. Considering how cold a certain husband of mine likes to keep the house, I'm likely going to be wrapping up in this a lot this fall and winter.

BSJ? Check!

2011-09-27T20:08:00.000-04:00

While the knitting was finished some time ago, it is really only after this last weekend that I was able to cross one baby knit off my list officially. Presenting the Socks That Rock Baby Surprise Jacket:

(Before I get into too many details, I must stop and ask your forgiveness for the quality of these photos. By the time I had a minute to take them, there was no natural light to be had.)

Pattern: Baby Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmermann
Yarn: Socks That Rock Mediumweight (100% superwash merino) in Muddy Autumn Rainbow
Needles: US 5 (3.75 mm) Addi Turbos
Started/Completed: September 7/September 21
Mods: omitted the buttonholes in favor of a single crochet edging incorporating two button loops

This pattern is an oldie but a goodie, and it's definitely my go-to pattern when there's a baby coming and its sex is going to be a surprise. In this case, the baby in question belongs to a coworker of mine and is due to arrive in mid-December (perhaps even on Rainbow's birthday). The yarn had been in my stash for at least a couple years (since I was last in the Rockin' Sock Club) and seemed like a pretty gender-neutral colorway.

As to the buttons, I had hoped to find some at my LYS but didn't see any that were the right size and material, so I made do with a couple that I found in my button stash. I think this dark green works pretty well with the colors of the yarn, don't you?

Every time I knit this pattern, I'm always enchanted by it -- and I always have to refer to the pattern no matter how familiar I think I am with it! The sweater will be put away for the time being, and I'm very happy to be able to cross it off my list. Don't worry, there are plenty of other baby knits still in line!

All About the Cormo

2011-09-25T20:02:00.000-04:00

A quick post for tonight, as it's the end of a very busy weekend and there's still a lot to be done before I can lie down and try to go to sleep.

Here's the latest spin from the Crown Mountain Farms fiber club -- September's shipment, 4 oz. of Cormo roving in a very autumnal colorway called Annunaki on Tiamat.

After much thinking, I opted to go for a barber-poling two ply on this one, and I wisely chose to spin it on my Lendrum rather than my miniSpinner. I say wisely because this fiber was extremely neppy and quite full of VM, so I had to stop frequently to remove the offenders and that was less of a pain in the you-know-what to do on the traditional wheel.

The fiber was extremely soft, so that made all the starting and stopping worth it, but it was a tad annoying to have to start and stop so much (especially as this prep isn't typical of CMF fiber). Cormo is a fine wool, though, so it's very easy to overprocess. The neppy texture made it difficult to get a truly smooth, even yarn, and that combined with the fact that this prep was roving, not top, meant that the resulting yarn is rather thick and thin.

All that said, I'm pretty happy with the finished yarn, which measures in at roughly 370.5 yards and is more or less about sportweight. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this, but I think it has to be something that will be touching sensitive skin, like my neck, because it is so delightfully soft. Cowl? Small shawl? Let the pattern search begin!

Ready for Fall

2011-09-22T19:44:00.001-04:00

Fall officially starts tomorrow, and my knitting mojo is officially back and in full swing.

Last night, I decided to have a little finishing party to take care of the projects that were only waiting for finishing touches to be finished. First, I got out the STR Baby Surprise Jacket, which only needed some edging (in single crochet) around the sleeve cuffs and a couple of buttons. I finished the edging and wove in all my ends, but I couldn't find two matching buttons in the appropriate size in my button stash, so I will have to get those at my LYS this weekend. The sweater needs a good blocking to get it clean and to get the edges to behave a little better, but I'm pretty much at the point now where I can cross it off my baby knitting list.

Next, I bit the bullet and finally sewed the buttons on my Essential Cardigan. I'd picked out a couple of button options last week, so I picked the winning selection and got busy with my needle and thread. It really didn't take that much time, but I wouldn't exactly call it fun to sew buttons with black thread on dark gray fabric. Fortunately, I had some good entertainment on my computer while I was working (I'm finally caught up, yay!), so it didn't get too tedious. I plopped the sweater in the tub this morning after my shower and laid it out to dry after breakfast, so I should have a sweater ready to wear this weekend, should I so choose.

There are several other baby projects to work on/start, but I'm taking a bit of a break to work on Rainbow's Roo. I'd really like her to be able to wear it this fall, before it gets so cold that she needs a real winter coat, so I'm trying to plow through it as quickly as I can. I'm a handful of rows from getting to the armhole shaping on the back at this point, and it seems to be the right size when held up to her, so so far, so good.

Meanwhile, during my lunch breaks, I've been working on a sock (yes, I know, I'm just as shocked as you are). I unearthed a pattern I had written down several years ago in a notebook that I just pulled out again and am making a few adjustments to it. It's written to fit my feet, but I'd like to upsize it as well, so I'll be doing a little figuring on it.

That's a lot of knitting, isn't it? Yep, I'd say fall is definitely here.

One and Done

2011-09-18T20:05:00.000-04:00

Tonight's yarn has been done for a couple of weeks at least, but I completely forgot to photograph it until this weekend. This was the August shipment for the Crown Mountain Farms fiber club, 4 oz. of Gotland in a subtle colorway called Hammer of the Gods. The natural color of the fiber was a dark gray, so the dye job was not very dramatic, but all the same it was very pretty. Here was the fiber:

Much like the Lincoln I spun earlier this summer, 4 oz. of this fiber didn't amount to a lot volume-wise, so it was a quick spin. This was actually the first thing I spun after the conclusion of the summer contest, so I was eager to spin something that would be fast and easy. It had been a while since I'd spun a singles yarn (all yarn for the contest had to be plied), and as this fiber was long and wavy, it seemed perfectly suited to it. Though they can be frustrating (because you don't have the step of plying to even out the twist), singles yarns can be really satisfying because you spin up one bobbin and you're done. That was certainly the case with this yarn.

The color was nearly impossible to capture on camera, but you can see that it's a smooth, lustrous yarn. I slightly fulled it by throwing it in alternating hot and cold baths and then giving it a vigorous thwacking against the side of the tub; this helps to tame the twist a bit and help the yarn to hold together. The finished product is about 402 yards and really silky, though not particularly next-to-skin soft. I'll have to find the right pattern for it, but this spin was a success!

Notice Posted

2011-09-15T19:54:00.000-04:00

First, a public service announcement: Today it was so chilly outside (highs in the 50s) that I pulled out a pair of handknit wool socks to wear. Tomorrow's going to be just a tad bit warmer, so I'm planning on a long-sleeved tee and this shawl, which has been waiting patiently for me to wear it since it was finished. I think fall may have officially arrived.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

After posting the other night, I got out my purple yarn and cast on for Rainbow's Roo. (Technically I cast on again, because I'd started and done a few rows the night before and ripped it out after measuring and realizing it was going to end up too small.) I'm through about half a repeat of the chart on the back and have done one decrease so far, so it's definitely in progress now. I was a bit slow going at first because my brain and the chart were not cooperating, but now that we've straightened things out, it seems to be all smooth sailing. I'm also cabling without a cable needle, so that's making things quicker as well. My goal is to have this done by later this fall so Rainbow can actually wear it before she outgrows it, though that's iffy seeing as she is regularly refusing all sorts of things (like, lately, pants and anything with ruffles). She seems to be enamored of the yarn, though, to the point where I had to cut a small piece of it for her this morning so she wouldn't unravel and completely tangle an entire skein.

I've got a bit of a lull going in my design stuff (the one pattern is in testing, another submission is ready to go out the door), though of course the ideas have not stopped. Since watching Return to Cranford the other night, I've been obsessed by the shawls worn by some of the women, specifically the one worn by Judi Dench -- it looks a little like the one here, but there was almost a collar to it as well. I've got a rough sketch and a rough idea of how to execute it, but I need to sit down with some yarn and needles and swatch a bit to see if I can get it to work. If I can, I'm thinking I'll put it up on Ravelry as a free download, and in the meantime I can share the process with you here.

Back on Track

2011-09-13T19:55:00.001-04:00

Although technically it's not yet autumn, the week's forecast calls for a couple slightly cooler days (highs in the 60s) and some definitely cooler nights (lows in the 40s), so I feel completely justified in getting out my wool yarns and knitting sweaters and other warm things.

About a week ago, I cast on for a Baby Surprise Jacket for a baby gift for a coworker who is due in December. I haven't given it too much attention, so it's moving slowly so far. I've just started the increase section and I'm starting to pick up some steam, so I'm hoping to get it finished within the next week or so. I know the baby is not going to need it anytime soon, but I have quite a few baby items to knit in the next six or so months and I'd like to get them all done as early as I can.

The next big(ish) project to go on the needles will be Roo for Rainbow. My swatching ended up giving me more problems than solutions. To get the specified stitch gauge, I probably would have had to go up to a US 9 needle, and in my opinion, that would have resulted in a fabric that was way too loose for this particular garment. Added to that is the fact that I really like the fabric density I was getting with a US 7, though my gauge is off. I decided to go with the fabric I liked and adjust for the gauge difference by knitting a larger size. Originally, I'd intended to knit the 24" size (Rainbow has a 20.5" chest but I wanted a few inches of positive ease in order for the sweater/jacket to fit over other clothes and allow her some space to grow). I cast on for that size and knit a few rows last night, and it looked like it was matching the finished measurements of the 22" size, so I ripped it. I'll cast on again tonight for the next size larger and see how that goes.

I did finish my Essential Cardigan last week but have yet to sew on the buttons (bad knitter!). It's really silly how about 20 minutes of work are standing in the way of my having a new sweater. I think I may have some residual feelings of resentment toward the sweater from all that miserable 1x1 ribbing, though, so it may need to sit in time out for a bit longer until I'm ready to face it again.

Finally, I'm getting another original pattern ready to go into the testing phase. At this point I am planning on self-publishing it on Ravelry, though I've been toying with the idea of submitting it to the Knit Picks Independent Designer Program because I knit the sample in Knit Picks yarns. Thoughts? ~~I will let you all know when the pattern is going up for testing~~ The pattern is now in testing here, in case you're interested, but in the meantime, here's a little preview:

Transitioning to Autumn

2011-09-11T14:05:00.000-04:00

How did I miss a full week in my blogging schedule? I'm not sure exactly, but I think the fact that I had a five-day weekend messed me up a bit; I was constantly confused about what day it was when I got back to work, so I think I was planning on blogging on a specific day and then somehow skipped that day. My apologies.

The weather has begun to get a little cooler, so it's started to feel more correct to be working with wool. I didn't spend that much time at my wheel this week (at least not compared to the last several months), but I have been enjoying the fiber I've been spinning -- Cormo from Crown Mountain Farms. This is the September shipment from the fiber club, and the colors are just perfect for fall. (The colors are much prettier without the flash, but it's cloudy enough here today that my camera did not want to focus without the flash on.)

I'm spinning this on my Lendrum because I'm having to stop frequently to pull out nepps and VM. This fiber is incredibly soft, but because it's such a fine wool, it does have the tendency to get neppy. I'm trying to go with the flow and not worry so much about not getting a perfectly smooth, even yarn, so I'm not being too obsessive about it. This will be a barber-poling two ply when it's done, and I suspect that it's going to poof up when I wash it.

That's really all for my spinning right now except for one thing -- yes, I won. ;-)

Summer's End

2011-09-04T20:06:00.000-04:00

Today marks the close of my LYS's summer contest, so yesterday I took in my last two entries for the spinning portion. It still remains to be seen whether my effort was enough to capture the title, but I'm very pleased with my entries, and that includes these last two.

First up, Chameleon Colorworks merino/tencel in the colorway Support the Girls. I had started this on my Jenkins Turkish spindle earlier in the summer but never made much progress on it, so I took the spindle parts out and fed what had been spun onto a bobbin of my miniSpinner until I reached the unspun fiber and finished the rest from there. This ended up as roughly 672 yards of heavy laceweight.

I'd spun this particular blend before (not long after I started spinning) and found it difficult to work with at the time, so I'm happy to say that I had a much better time with it this time around. It is a slippery blend, though, so I wouldn't recommend it for a beginner, but the finished yarn does have an amazing shine.

The colors more or less matched up when I plied, which was completely unplanned and unintended, so this yarn will self-stripe to a certain extent when it's knit up.

The last yarn was finished at the last minute, and at the end there I wasn't sure if I was going to make it. This is Masham from Crown Mountain Farms from last year's fiber club (it was the last bundle of fiber from last year that was unspun), and I spun the singles on my Bosworth Midi spindle. I was committed to doing the singles for both plies on the spindle, and that's the reason I wasn't sure I was going to finish in time. But I managed to finish up the second half on Thursday while I was home with Rainbow (her daycare was closed for the day). In the interest of saving time -- and going easy on my wrists -- I opted to ply on my miniSpinner, which took all of a couple of hours on Friday night.

The finished two-ply yarn is fingering and about 375 yards. The colorway, Siddhartha, was much more vibrant before it was spun but seems to have toned down some in the process of being spun.

The fiber reminded me a little of Wensleydale in that the staple length was long and the fiber was wavy, rather than crimpy. It's not the softest yarn, but it is much less wiry than the Wensleydale I've spun and it has a slight halo that is rather lovely.

So, that's the end of the spinning for the summer, but don't think that means the wheels (and spindles) are going away until next summer. I'm going to be spending less time spinning and more time knitting now, but the spinning bug hasn't left me yet and there's still a lot of stash to spin up, so stay tuned!

Sweater Season

2011-09-01T20:22:00.000-04:00

I'm still mystified as to how the summer has gone by so quickly and it is already September. On the one hand, I'm a little sad about it because I hate that it's getting darker earlier (and lighter later), but on the other hand, I'm excited for fall, my favorite season. I really do not care for the heat, so I look forward to those beautiful autumn days when there's a hint of a chill in the air but the sun is still warm -- perfect sweater weather.

My LYS' summer contest ends this weekend and I have one more yarn to finish up tonight/tomorrow, so my evenings of spinning are soon to come to and end. I will still be doing some, of course, but not to the exclusion of my knitting -- which is a good thing, because my sweater mojo is coming back in a big way.

My first order of business is finishing up my Essential Cardigan, which has been on the needles for more than four months -- and for at least the last two there's been only the button band to finish. I dug it out last weekend and put in some time on it on Saturday and then again last night at knit night, and as a result I have only about two more inches to knit. Unfortunately, that sounds like a lot less work than it actually is, because a row takes me a good 15-20 minutes (the band goes up one side, around the neck, and down the other side, and ever other row is 1x1 ribbing). Once my focus is no longer on spinning all the time, though, I think I should be able to finish it up relatively quickly and have it ready to wear once it starts getting cooler.

I already have my next projects ready to go once it's done, too. I received a Knit Picks order earlier this week with the supplies.

On top is the kit for the Corrie Vest for me, and underneath is a bunch of Swish worsted in Eggplant to make a Roo for Rainbow. I swatched today and am looking forward to casting on!

For the Love of Shetland

2011-08-29T17:54:00.000-04:00

I intended to post this last night, but we were out for dinner to celebrate my parents' anniversary and got home later than I'd anticipated, which meant that a certain toddler got to bed late and there were a bunch of things to do before I could go to bed.

In any case, I do have another yarn to show you, though this one might be called boring relative to some of the handspun you've seen here in recent weeks.

A month or two ago, while perusing the spinning corner of my LYS, I came across an 8 oz. bag of beautiful moorit-colored Shetland top from Louet. At $12.50 for 8 oz., it was too good a deal to pass up, especially because I'd been wanting to try Shetland again (my previous experience with it wasn't all that wonderful, and as so many people seem to rave about this breed, I figured it was worth another go). The first batch I'd spun was a little on the scratchy side, but I suspect that had something to do with the dye. This fiber was a natural color, and while it certainly wasn't the softest fiber ever, it was a much more pleasurable spin.

I opted to spin a traditional three ply and aimed for my usual fingering weight. This was my first time plying such a large amount on my miniSpinner, and I was pleased as punch that by the time one bobbin ran out of singles, I still had a little bit of space left of the bobbin. This monster skein is almost 550 yards. I was hoping for a little more than that, but I guess I didn't spin my singles as thin as I thought I was.

The leftovers on the other two bobbins were paltry enough that it wasn't worth trying to divide them up and do all sorts of crazy splicing, so I chain plied one bobbin's worth until it ran out and then spliced in the rest. The resulting skein-lette is about 22.5 yards.

The finished yarn isn't super soft, but it's not really scratchy either. I'm thinking that it will be good for a cozy shawl or a set of accessories, or maybe I'll keep it and spin up some other fiber to combine it with for a garment. Regardless, it was a fun spin, and I definitely see why so many people love Shetland now.

The Baby List

2011-08-24T19:35:00.000-04:00

There's roughly a week and a half left in the summer contest at my LYS, so I am still spending my evenings spinning and trying to get as much done as possible by then. A little bit of knitting has been creeping in from time to time, however. The past couple of Saturdays when I've gone to Natural Stitches (as I do most Saturday afternoons), I've been working on the Rainbow Chain Carriage Blanket that I'm knitting for a baby due in December. I'm following Courtney's mods, however, and making much wider color stripes with only three colors (three shades of blue, to be exact).

The mother-to-be requested a blue blanket, so I'm thinking this will fit the bill. I'm using Berocco Vintage (again copying Courtney's blanket), a 50% acrylic/40% wool/10% nylon blend, in Mochi, Dark Denim, Bilberry, and Misty. I am planning for 18 stripes total at the point but may add more if it needs more length. The knitting is a bit fussy because I have three skeins attached at any given time (one for right border, one for the stripe in the middle, and one for the left border), so I'm spending a fair amount of time detangling and rearranging skeins as I go, but it's going to be really stunning when it's done. I started it now figuring that I can do a stripe or two at a time at a leisurely pace and still have it done in time for the baby's arrival.

Really, baby knitting is mostly what I'm going to be doing for the rest of the year. I balled up a skein of STR Mediumweight on Monday night in preparation for casting on for a Baby Surprise Jacket for one of my coworkers. She is not finding out the sex of the baby, so I though it this was a fairly gender-neutral colorway (it's Muddy Autumn Rainbow from the sock club two years ago).

I'm planning on knitting up this BSJ pretty much exactly like I did Rainbow's, with I-cord edging and button loops. I know that it fit Rainbow as a newborn (although it was a tad large on her for going home from the hospital), and as this baby is due December 10, he/she should be able to get good wear out of it during those first few months.

I have a list of other baby projects in my head as well for the coming months -- a sweater for the other December baby (perhaps in handspun), a blanket and sweater for a little girl coming in January, and something for a baby due in March (though I'm waiting until the parents find out the sex). I'm still using my lunch break knitting to work on design stuff, and at some point I'm going to have to get back to my Essential Cardigan and finish it. I guess my hiatus from knitting (in favor of spinning) is officially over!

The Unbearable Lightness of Romney

2011-08-21T20:01:00.000-04:00

I finished another yarn late last week that qualifies for the summer contest. This was the July shipment for the Crown Mountain Farms fiber club (so I'm only a little behind!), Romney in a gorgeous colorway called the Unbearable Lightness of Being. I was so excited to spin it that I neglected to snap a picture of the fiber before I started spinning, but it reminded me very much of chocolate covered cherries. I spun up the two bobbins of singles on my Lendrum (surprisingly quickly, I might add) and plied on my miniSpinner.

The resulting yarn is light fingering weight and about 394 yards.

It's very pretty, but it's not as soft as I was hoping it would be. I'm wondering if it's something about the dye that makes it a little rough, because my Romney fleece is much softer, though of course it could vary by sheep.

I now have two weeks left to spin for the contest and have two projects in progress that I'm determined to finish. First, 8 oz. of beautiful moorit (that's the name for the light milk chocolatey color) Shetland top from Louet that I bought at the store and is destined to be a three ply. I'm on the third and final bobbin of singles now and am hoping to have it finished up by tomorrow night so I can start plying on Tuesday.

I'm also trying to finish a spindle project -- Masham top from last year's CMF fiber club on my Bosworth.

What you see here is the first half of the fiber. I was hoping to get all 2 oz. on the spindle at once, but my cop started falling about on me and I had to wind off. I'm going to focus on my winding a little more on the second half and attempt to get it all in one cop. This'll be plied on the wheel, though, because my wrists just can't stand the idea of using that giant plying spindle again!

Finished Stuff Friday

2011-08-19T14:18:00.001-04:00

It's Friday, I haven't blogged in a while, and I haven't been doing much that's blog-worthy or inspiring, so I thought I'd take a page from Jenn's book and at least show you something that is finished. It's a mitten.

It still needs to be blocked (it just came off the needles last night), but this is the second in a pair. The pattern, of course, is my own; this sample is done in the medium size without the picot hem. I used Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift for these, though I still have to weigh the remains to see how much yardage I used. It's definitely more rustic and fuzzy than the Knit Picks I used for the pattern sample, but this yarn is kind of like velcro in that it really sticks to itself, so I know these are going to felt up nicely with wear. The reason I can't show you a complete set is that the other mitten is now a shop sample at Natural Stitches, which is also now carrying the pattern! So if you're local, you can stop by to fondle the other mitten if you'd like.

The mitten knitting has been done primarily during my lunch hour at work because my evenings have been filled with mad spinning to try to get as much done before the contest ends as I possibly can. I'll save the spinning update until Sunday, though.

This afternoon, however, I got to leave work early because of a power outage, so I'm going to spend a couple of hours working on a sample/prototype for a new design. Here's a peek:

Happy weekend!

Finishing Spree

2011-08-14T19:40:00.000-04:00

I've gotten a little crazy with my spinning lately. Time is running out on my LYS' summer contest, though, so I've been keeping my wheels busy. For tonight's post, I play catch up.

All Spun Up Polwarth in Goldfish Wearing a Tutu, chain plied, light fingering weight, 576 yards

Crown Mountain Farms Lincoln in Magic Carpet, two-ply fingering weight, 275 yards

Yarn Hollow merino/bamboo/nylon in Eggplant, two-ply fingering weight*

Leftovers scrappy skein -- leftover singles from previous spins, chain plied, fingering weight*

*Both of these skeins were dropped off to be judged for the contest before I had a chance to record my yardage, though the merino/bamboo/nylon was somewhere in the 500s and the scrappy skein was somewhere in the 300s.

A Bit of Lace

2011-08-10T19:57:00.000-04:00

There's only a little more than three weeks left in my LYS' summer contest, so most of my evening leisure time has been spent at one wheel or another trying to get as much spun up as I can. Last week, however, I took some time off to do a little knitting. I've been working on small projects as usual during my lunch breaks at work, but it's been some time since I worked on a big-ish project at home (yes, my Essential Cardigan is still hibernating!). I wasn't necessarily looking for a project to do; rather, one kind of came to me.

Having used the Free Pattern Testers group to test my mitten pattern, I've peeked in from time to time to see the other patterns in testing. About a week and a half ago, I happened to catch a test for a small shawl before it filled up (I've found that the lace patterns test to fill pretty quickly). The pattern was written for one skein of sock yarn, so I knew it wouldn't be a huge time commitment and promptly signed up. I cast on for it on a Friday night (the week before last) with a skein of Dream in Color Smooshy in Happy Forest that was wound and waiting in my stash. Before I knew it, I had a shawl:

Obviously I did a poor job of photographing it because I cut off the right edge, but I really like how this turned out. The slightly crescent shape is achieved though six increases on every two rows (four on the right side, two on the wrong side) through the stockinette section. Then, when you get to the lace, you increase with yarnovers just twice on each right side row. I think what's notable about this shawl is that all the increases before the lace border are m1s, so there are no holes along the top edge or along the center spine.

The lace itself was pretty straightforward, though I made a couple of errors (just some extra yarnovers) that had me scratching my head a couple of times. Fortunately, all were easy to fix and no frogging was needed.

It may sound silly, but I think what I liked best about this shawl was how easy it was to block! I put two pins in the center point and two at each of the end points (more for stability than anything else) and then one in each point along the border. I didn't have to get out my blocking wires, and even though I did repin the points a couple of times -- it's not in my obsessive, perfectionist nature to not repin! -- the entire process took less than 10 minutes.

The pattern is not yet available, but I can fully recommend it, so keep an eye out for it!

TdF Wrap-up

2011-08-07T19:50:00.000-04:00

I skipped my Spinning Sunday post last week because the last of my Tour de Fleece yarns were at my LYS, waiting to be judged for the summer spinning contest. They're now back in my stash, so I can show them to you.

The first was spun from a set of three mystery batts -- I say "mystery" because their contents were unknown. They came to be from a friend who got them from another friend, so there was really no way of finding out what fibers were in them. I suspect wool of some sort (not a particularly soft wool, either) and something like firestar or angelina, because they had a little sparkle to them. They were not particularly fun to spin, as they were sticky (lanolin, perhaps?) and neppy. I had about 3.25 ounces when I started, though I lost a little of that weight from all the nepps I pulled out while spinning. In spite of this experience, I quite like the finished yarn.

It's a three-ply fingering weight, roughly 189 yards, and has just a slight touch of iridescence to it from whatever the sparkly substance was. The stickiness also seems to have washed out, though the finished yarn isn't really all that soft. This is definitely going into the stash to marinate until I figure out what to make with it.

The other yarn is one I'm very proud of. It stared out as 4 oz. of mixed Corriedale from Gale's Art that I bought at MDSW -- mainly because it was inexpensive and I wanted something that was nice but not too nice to break in my Bosworth spindle. I ended up spinning all 4 oz. on that spindle and then plied it on that gigantic Louet beginner's spindle. Toward the end there was so much on the plying spindle and it was getting so heavy and unwieldy, I had to wind the rest of the yarn off the plying ball and onto a TP roll so I could ply the rest from the other end with the Bosworth. I did manage to get it all plied in one skein, though. (The small skein you see in front here is extra singles from half of the fiber that I wound into a center-pull ball and plied from both ends.)

I had completed my first official spindle-spun yarn earlier in the TdF, but this is officially my first 4 oz. skein -- all spun and plied on a spindle. It is a two-ply fingering weight and rougly 329 yards, with an additional 15.5 yards in the small skein. This skein taught me that I really enjoy spinning singles on a spindle, but plying? Not so much. I think from this point forward, unless I'm working with really small amounts, all of plying is going to be done on one wheel or the other.

Pattern Release: Eidetic Mittens

2011-08-04T19:42:00.001-04:00

You've had some peeks at the design from my previous blog posts, but I am so excited to share the final pattern with you today. Presenting the Eidetic Mittens:

These colorwork mittens are knit using two contrasting colors of fingering weight yarn (the sample you see here used Knit Picks Palette in Peapod and Ash). The pattern is the same on both sides of the mitten, meaning that the two mittens are interchangeable -- no figuring out which is the left and which is the right on a cold day! The cuff is a 2x1 corrugated ribbing and features an option for a picot edging.

The thumb on these mittens is gusseted, meaning that stitches are added gradually at the side of the hand. I personally find this kind of thumb much more comfortable to wear, as, anatomically speaking, that's where the thumb is on my hand. Once the necessary number of stitches have been added, the thumb stitches are put on waste yarn until the hand has been completed, and the thumb is then finished to fit the wearer's hand.

The standard size is achieved through a gauge of 10 stitches per inch in the stranded colorwork pattern and results in a mitten that is roughly a 7.5 inch circumference. It's very easy to size these up, however, as all you need to do is use a slightly larger needle to change the gauge. No recalculating of numbers necessary!

The pattern is now for sale on Ravelry. I hope you enjoy it!

Starting in Style

2011-08-02T19:58:00.000-04:00

I mentioned recently that there's a bit of a baby boom going on here (we found out about yet another baby on the way over the weekend!), so baby knitting has officially commenced. I've got a while before the others arrive, but the first of the group is expected later this month by my coworker and we're having a shower for her at the office tomorrow. I needed a quick but cute knit, as the mama-to-be is pretty stylish and is a knitter herself, so I did a search on Ravelry for some baby patterns that I hadn't knit yet. I found this one, which looked perfect to me for a summer baby.

Pattern: Abigail Sweater by Kay Squared (free Ravelry download)
Yarn: Knit Picks Shine Worsted (60% Pima cotton, 40% Modal) in Watermelon, just under three skeins
Needles: US 5/3.75 mm circs
Started/Completed: July 14/July 24, 2011

If this sweater looks familiar, it's probably because it's a variation on Elizabeth Zimmermann's Sweater on Two Needles (aka February Baby Sweater). The changes are in the yoke, which incorporates top-down raglan shaping, and the scooped neckline, which is achieved through casting on stitches at the beginning of several rows. The gull lace is the same, so if you've knit the EZ sweater or its cousin, the February Lady Sweater, you'll be very familiar with it. The pattern ends the sleeves at the end of the garter stitch, but I can see how this could easily be turned into a long-sleeved sweater. For my purposes, though, I didn't think it was necessary.

The pattern is a free download on Ravelry and was only a page long (like EZ's patterns, it is pithy), which made it very convenient to carry around, as I was working on this sweater mostly during my lunch break at work. I wouldn't recommend it to a true beginner, as it's a bit difficult to follow in a couple areas if you haven't worked the EZ original before, though I suspect some spacing in between directions might help in this respect. As you can see, it results in a really cute interpretation of the classic FBS that I think it just perfect for an August baby.

To finish it off, I kept the last bound-off stitch live and put that loop on a crochet hook. Then I did a row of single crochet up one button band, around the neck, and down the other button band, incorporating the two button loops with crochet chains. I did a row of single crochet around the armholes as well, as the underarm areas were a little sloppy.

This yarn had been in my stash for years, so it was nice to get it out again. I was reminded of the frustration I've had with the sport weight version of it -- it sheds. I had to put together several pieces of Scotch tape (what I had on hand in my office) to make a poor man's lint roller after each knitting session because I was covered in deep pink fuzz. That said, the yarn is soft and silky and, of course, machine washable, so I am not disappointed in it. I have seven skeins, or about 525 yards, leftover that will likely eventually become something for Rainbow. I'll just have to remember to have my lint roller on hand then!

On Design, Part III

2011-07-27T17:47:00.000-04:00

Up to this point, we've covered the idea, converting the idea into a chart, and swatching. All that remained on this particular pattern was to knit it to make sure that it worked as a whole.

Because I was intending to offer this pattern on Ravelry, it was important to me to have someone else review the pattern and knit from it to make sure that the instructions were clear and that, combined with the charts, they would result in a mitten that looked like the one in my head. Because I had designed this mitten and knew what should be done from one step to another, my knitting of the sample from the pattern was not going to cut it (not to mention that I was too close to the pattern to see any errors).

Luckily, one of the many wonderful resources on Ravelry is the free pattern testing groups. There are two that I know of, the Testing Pool and the Free Pattern Testers. Of the two, the latter is definitely the more stringent, with very specific requirements and steps to take and very active moderators who ensure that both testers and designers stay on top of things. I know that some designers don't care for FPT because the rules are so strict, but because I am busy and don't always have time to chase people down, I chose it for my test because I knew it would ensure that I had a positive experience (i.e., no testers disappearing on me or not completing the test on time). Testers in this group are only allowed to sign up for a certain number of projects at once and they're required to check in with the designer weekly on their progress.

I had three test knitters for my design, each one knitting one of the three sizes. Because both mittens are identical, I only required them to knit one mitten, though one person is doing both at the same time. I am still waiting to hear from that last tester (she was on vacation for about a week and a half), but the other two have finished and have given me great feedback. They were able to catch a minor typo in the numbering of the chart rows and also suggest a change in a direction that was a little unclear.

If you're designing something and want to have some test knitting done, I highly recommend going to one or both of these Ravelry groups. On the flip side, if you're interested in knitting not-yet-available patterns, consider signing up to be a tester. You'll not only get a sneak peek at a new pattern, but you'll get the final pattern from the designer at the end as a thank-you.

I am hoping to pull together the final pattern for my mittens this weekend (a proper photo shoot of the sample is needed), so watch this space for the announcement of the pattern release! In the meantime, here's a little preview.

A Yellow Jersey?

2011-07-24T20:23:00.000-04:00

The Tour de Fleece, like the Tour de France, officially concludes today, though it remains to be seen whether I will be able to wear my yellow jersey at day's end. I did complete another yarn, one that marks a new skill in my spinning, and by coincidence, it is rather yellow.

It stared as roving (yes, really roving!) from Crown Mountain Farms. This was the June fiber club shipment, Perendale in a retina-searing colorway called the Fifth Element. Because it was roving rather than the usual combed top, I decided that it was a perfect opportunity for me to work on my long draw. I split the fiber in half to do a two ply and got to work. The second bobbin was definitely better than the first -- while it was still a little uneven, I was much more comfortable with the technique. The resulting yarn is certainly very light and airy.

The yardage wasn't as good as I was hoping for (only about 325 yards), but I'm pleased with the yarn. I don't think I'm a long draw master just yet, but it no longer scares/frustrates me. Now I have a good reason to get out my handcards and make some rolags.

Tonight, in order to really get my yellow jersey, I need to finish plying up my Gale's Art Corriedale from MDSW.

That gigantic spindle is the 2+ oz. Louet beginner's spindle I got when I first got interested in spinning about 3 1/2 years ago, and it hasn't seen much use since then. I pulled it out again because I thought it'd be big enough to hold the full 4 oz. skein, but we'll see if that can be done. I don't have much less to do, but it is getting harder and harder to spin as the cop grows. Assuming I do get all the yarn on, that'll be more than 6 oz. in total on it at once! I have a newfound respect for spinners who do everything on spindles. I think that from here on out, I may ply only small amounts on a spindle but ply everything else on the wheel -- if only for the sake of my wrists.

Baby Boom

2011-07-21T20:06:00.000-04:00

While most of the crafty activity around here this week has been of the spinning variety, a bit of knitting has been happening and a to-knit list has been growing.

The reason? There are a lot of babies on the way. Two of my coworkers are pregnant, and one is due next month with a girl, so I really had to get my needles going for that one. Because she will be a summer baby, I decided to go with something light. I found the Abigail Sweater on Ravelry. It's a free pattern that's very reminiscent of Elizabeth Zimmermann's February Baby Sweater; knit from the top down, it has a garter raglan top and a gull lace bottom. It's also seamless and fast, which is is a must for any last-minute knit in my book.

I'm using some Knit Picks Shine Worsted that has been in my stash for years; I originally intended to use it to make myself another Sizzle, but clearly if I haven't done it by now, I'm probably not ever going to. The color is bright and cheerful and definitely girly, so I think this is a good use for it. It looks like I'll use about three skeins total, leaving me plenty to make something for Rainbow.

The other coworker is due in December (right around Rainbow's birthday!) and she isn't finding out the sex, so I am thinking Baby Surprise Jacket in a gender-neutral shade of sock yarn (one of the many skeins of STR in my stash, perhaps?). I've got a while until that needs to be done, though, so I won't be casting on just yet and will keep my eyes open for other pattern ideas in the meantime.

Finally, some friends of ours are expecting their first in late January, and that kid is going to get spoiled rotten with knitting, but as they are going to be finding out the sex, I am waiting to hear before I make definite knitting plans.

The Tour de Fleece wraps up this Saturday, so I am trying to finish up the skeins in progress by then. Once we're through this horrible heat wave (today's heat index was supposed to go up to 107!), I think it's time to pull out my Essential Cardigan again and finish up the button band. There's really so little left to knit on it that it shouldn't take me more than a few nights to do, and I think it'd be really nice to go into fall with a new sweater to wear.

The Poof

2011-07-17T12:21:00.000-04:00

Today's spinning is the most recent yarn off my miniSpinner, a beautiful 4 oz. of Mountain Colors Targhee that started its life looking like this:

I split this top for a fractal spin. The idea of a fractal yarn is that the color repeat is the same in all the plies, but the rate at which the colors change is different in each ply. Because I was going for a two-ply yarn, I split the whole top lengthwise in half and then split one of the halves in half again. The resulting yarn, then, would have one ply that would go through the color repeat once and one ply that would go through it twice. As a result, the colors would sometimes coincide and sometimes barberpole -- a nice effect, in my opinion.

I spun the singles very fine and plied over the course of two spinning sessions. When I wound the yarn onto my niddy noddy, it looked to be a heavy laceweight. Then I gave it its bath and some magic happened. It fluffed up into a squishy, bouncy fingering weight -- in short, it went "poof!"

I love how this yarn turned out, and at 555 yards for my 4 oz., I should have plenty to knit a shawl or wrap with it.

On Design, Part II

2011-07-12T19:58:00.000-04:00

When last we talked about the design process, we were still in the sketching and charting phase. Now a sketch and a chart may look fine, but as I'm sure we've all discovered when fiddling with our knitting to try to get it to come out a certain way, something on paper doesn't always translate well to something in yarn, particularly when you're dealing with a graphic pattern. The next step, then, was to swatch.

I pulled out some leftover Knit Picks Palette from the stash and a printout of the graph and got to work. For this particular swatch, I decided it would be best to do it in the round and using the full stitch count. While a faux in-the-round swatch worked okay for my Ivy League Vest, for a mitten, it wouldn't take much more time to do an abbreviated version of the whole thing. Also, because the motif is the same throughout, I didn't need to knit an entire mitten to get an idea of whether it would work -- I really only needed one repeat of the motif and the top portion to make sure the decreases worked with the motif. Because I wanted a visual of the whole mitten, I included a few rows of my planned cuff as well. This is what I ended up with:

I was pleased with this result, both in the appearance of the motif and in the gauge and feel of the finished fabric, so that meant I was able to move on to the next phase: writing the pattern.

To be honest, writing out the pattern was really the most difficult part of this process. Having worked on a pattern with essentially the same chart and setup before, I was familiar with what I needed to do to get the finished project I wanted. Making those steps clear to someone else -- especially to someone who may never before have knit a mitten like this -- is another story. I tried to be as specific as possible without feeling like I was doing too much hand-holding in the hopes that the pattern would be accessible to knitters of all experience levels. Whether that was the case would be seen in the test knitting phase -- which we'll talk about next time.

High-Fiber Cupcakes

2011-07-10T19:56:00.000-04:00

Lots of spinning going on, as you would expect, but no new yarns since the last post. I'm working on three spinning projects simultaneously -- one on the Lendrum, one on the miniSpinner, and one on the Bosworth -- so they're all making slow but steady progress. I predict they'll all turn into finished yarns at about the same time.

Instead, I have a little eye candy for you, and this is specifically at the request of Jenn, who, as a new spinner, is just discovering the temptation that is pretty fiber.

I've been trying to be good about buying fiber because I already have so much stashed (and I get an additional 4 oz. every month through the fiber club), but because it is the Tour de Fleece and I've been good about getting through the fiber and practicing certain spinning skills, I decided to treat myself. An ad on Ravelry caught my eye a couple of months ago and I'd put it in my favorites so I could find it again. I have to admit that the packaging of this fiber is totally what did me in.

The Cupcake Fiber Company specializes in fiber batts specifically intended for socks. (For those of you unfamiliar with this particular prep, a batt is a sheet of fiber that has been prepped on a drum carder.) The batts come packaged in what looks like a bakery box, with each batt artistically folded and rolled to look like a pastry instead of something that came off a sheep.

The package come with six batts that are each an ounce, so that you can spin up two skeins of three-ply sock yarn without having to worry about measuring and weighing the fiber ahead of time, and a couple of tags are even included so you can label the yarn when it's done. Clever, don't you think? The price was pretty reasonable considering the amount of work it takes to card fiber well, and shipping was free.

The batts I picked are a superwash merino/nylon blend, which should be perfect for socks. The colorway is called Bluest Berry -- quite an accurate name, in my opinion. It is an intense, almost glowing purple-y blue. I am planning on putting this next in line in the spinning queue, though I still have to decide if I'm going to spin it on the wheel or a spindle. Decisions, decisions!

Let the Tour Begin

2011-07-05T19:41:00.000-04:00

This is the time of year when I usually don't get much knitting done, and so far, this year's Tour de Fleece is proving to be very much the norm. Since it began on Saturday, I've knit only a little bit and having been spending the vast majority of my time spinning. I've been sure to give both wheels and my spindles a workout, and that variety has kept me from getting bored of any one thing.

I began in earnest on Saturday afternoon, while waiting for Rainbow to fall asleep for her nap so I could head over to my LYS, as I do almost every Saturday. We're now, for the most part, putting her down in her crib and then leaving the room to let her fall asleep on her own, so I was listening to her talk to herself, which was really cute. In the span of about 20 or so minutes, I started the June shipment from the Crown Mountain Farms fiber club -- Perendale in a shockingly bright colorway called the Fifth Element.

I'm spinning this using a modified/supported long draw; the fiber prep is actually roving, rather than top, for a change. I'm having a few issues as I get used to a spinning style that I don't usually use, but one of my spinning goals for the year was to work on my long draw, so I feel good about the effort. I'm hoping that this will result in a lighter, loftier yarn than what I usually spin.

Once Rainbow was asleep, I packed up my miniSpinner and headed over to Natural Stitches, where I started in on some stunning Mountain Colors Targhee top that I'd picked up there several weeks ago. I split the top for a two-ply fractal yarn, meaning that I split it in half lengthwise and then split one of the halves in half again. This means I'll be following the color sequence for both plies, but one ply will have much shorter color repeats than the other and will go through the sequence twice rather than once. This has been really fun to spin on the miniSpinner because the WooLee Winder creates layers of colors as I spin, so I can watch each color in the sequence overtake and cover up the previous color. One bobbin is complete and the second will be started shortly.

Finally, there's a yarn that is, despite its plain appearance, quite an accomplishment for me as a spinner. Two years ago, back when voting was still allowed in the TdF, I was lucky enough to win a couple prizes. One of those was a beautiful spindle with a glass whorl. Last year during the Tour, I decided that I should really get my spindling skills up to par, so I pulled it out along with some undyed mixed BFL and got going. I was a lot more successful on this attempt, but alas, after the Tour ended, the spindle sat for a long time. Earlier this year I had some renewed interest in spindling again and pulled it out to spin a second cop, and yesterday I plied the two.

This meager skein represents my first spindle-spun yarn -- and by that I mean that I spun the singles and plied them on a spindle. (I'm not counting my first attempts at spinning as a finished yarn, though they're probably still somewhere in my stash in a small tangle.) I'm very proud of this yarn, and not least because it was a yearlong process to finish it. I discovered that what really makes me enjoy spindle spinning is a good spindle; specifically I like a spindle with a notch, which the glass whorl spindle does not have. Because my yarn kept slipping, I kept getting frustrated with that particular spindle, and that's why I kept putting it down.

Spinning is likely to continue at a high rate of activity for a few more weeks, so bear with me if you're not here for the spinning stuff. There is some knitting to come, as I have some baby gifts to knit!

Clearing the Bobbins

2011-07-03T19:41:00.000-04:00

Without planning for it or intending to do it, I somehow managed to finish up two spinning projects just before the start of the Tour de Fleece (which officially started yesterday).

First, on my miniSpinner, I finished up another four ounces of Frabjous Fibers Merino/Sparkle. This was a commission of sorts for a friend who works at my LYS. She's not a spinner but was lusting after the fiber, so she asked me to spin it for her.

This colorway is called Purple People Eater, and I was strongly tempted to keep the fiber for myself. But a deal is a deal, so this is going to a good home very shortly.

On Thursday (or was it Friday?) night, I finally finished up the Crown Mountain Farms Columbia top that had been on my Lendrum for a while. The plying especially took some time; the yarn was so fluffy that it nearly filled my bobbin when I still had about a third of the singles left. It took me about an hour, but I managed to get the rest plied by plying about a foot of yarn at a time and then manually winding it on by turning the bobbin. In the end, the bobbin was so packed that it was touching the arms of the flyer on both sides from one end to the other.

I'm still not wild about this colorway, though it did tone down and turn out more autumnal and less 1970s after plying. I'm still a little behind on the fiber club (this was the May shipment; I'm working on June right now and am expecting July to come this week), but I am making good progress.

Interesting and somewhat surprising fact: When both of these yarns were dry and I measured yardage, I discovered that they were exactly the same length -- 355 yards. I'm not sure how that coincidence happened, but it's pretty amazing. Perhaps I should have played 355 in the lottery that day!

Waiting for Saturday

2011-06-30T19:46:00.000-04:00

I've been quiet here for several days because I've been busy with a number of things, the main one being a frequently cranky toddler (we are trying to wean her off her pacifier, and she is not very happy about it).

Knitting has been sporadic, though I did manage to finish a cute baby hat for the service knitting.

It's been a while since I knit this pattern (you may remember that I made Rainbow one that she wore all her first winter), and I had forgotten how fast it goes! I'm using some Cascade 220 Superwash that I found in the orphan bin at my LYS and some scraps of Dream in Color Classy leftover from my FLS. This little hat used a shockingly small amount of the purple yarn, so I should be able to get quite a few hats out of this one skein. I need to make one more to complete my total number of pledged projects, which I think I can reasonably do over the weekend.

My main activity this week has been clearing off the bobbins of my Lendrum in anticipation of the start of the Tour de Fleece this Saturday. I've been plying the singles of my CMF Eye of the Tiger, and the resulting yarn is turning out to be extremely poofy even before finishing. Case in point: take a look at this packed bobbin:

I still have a fair amount of singles left to ply, and that's after I've been manually turning the bobbin to get more yarn to wind on (the bobbin is so full that the yarn is actually touching the sliding yarn guide, so the yarn won't wind on on its own). I really hate to have a big skein and a tiny skein, so I may continue with the manual thing for a little longer to get as much plied into one skein as I can. The rest will probably go on my leftovers bobbin, which is almost full now.

Have a great holiday weekend, if you're celebrating! Next post: the TdF begins!

Sparkle Sparkle!

2011-06-26T19:53:00.000-04:00

As promised, here is the green sparkly yarn that I finished a couple of weeks ago.

The fiber was Frabjous Fibers Merino Sparkle, a 65% merino/35% nylon sparkle blend. This particular colorway was called Balsam. This yarn is what made me fall in love with my Hansen miniSpinner. I had used it twice to ply some previously spun singles before, but this is the first yarn that was spun entirely on it. I spun the first bobbin of singles on one day, spun the second bobbin on another, and plied them on the third. All told, I think this yarn took four days from start to finish, and I'm pretty sure that's a new record for me (not counting the uber-bulky skein I spun up in the first two days after I got my Lendrum).

This ended up a little heavier than I was intending -- I was going for a fingering weight and this is more of a sport weight -- but I love it anyway. The sparkle is subtle, and it's not at all showing in these pictures; when the light catches the skein at a certain angle, it almost glows.

While my miniSpinner and I still have some getting acquainted to do (it doesn't put as much plying twist in as I usually like, for instance, though the yarns I've plied on it seem to come off balanced), I predict that this is the beginning of a long and beautiful relationship.

On Design: Part I

2011-06-21T19:55:00.000-04:00

First things first: A surprise was waiting for me when I got home yesterday. I took about 30 seconds to open the box before I had to run to pick Rainbow up at daycare, but later in the evening I was able to bury my hand in the fiber and enjoy.

In case you're wondering, yes, this is the fleece I bought at MDSW, a 5 lb. white Romney. I have yet to pull the fiber out of the box and weight it to see how much I lost in cleaning and carding, but the shipping label says that the whole box was 5 lbs. 9 oz., and I can't imagine that a cardboard box can be all that heavy. The fiber itself turned out beautifully -- creamy white, just a few traces of VM that will be easy to pick out, and fairly soft. I am looking forward to getting to know this fleece, but I think I am going to hold off on spinning anything more than a small sample until later in the summer. I'd like to spin for another sweater, and for that I need to focus just on that one spinning project. I'm reserving this summer for spinning all sorts of stuff in my stash.

I have not touched my Essential Cardigan in almost a week, and the knitting I've been doing has been for a service project or a design I'm working on. Because I lack any good projects to show you, I thought I'd start a series of posts on some of the designing I've been doing. I've been awaiting word on one design that I submitted for publication (and I may have a while yet to wait), but there's another pattern I've been working on that I'm planning to put up on Ravelry for download, so I can share it with you.

This particular pattern is for a pair of mittens. It all started with a motif that occurred to me as I was trying to fall asleep one night, which seems to be when design ideas come to me!. Partly because of this, I have a little pad of paper on my nightstand, so I was able to jot down a quick sketch of what I was thinking; it looked something like this:

From there, it was a matter of creating a chart to see how I could get this motif to fit into a mitten shape. I have a set template in Microsoft Excel I've been working with that gives me a mitten shape and size I like, so I plopped the motif into the chart and played with it to get it to fit to my satisfaction. I've already designed and knit some mittens from this chart template, so I know that the stitch counts work, but I had to make sure that this motif had a repeat that would fit well. Luckily, it did, so that was one obstacle down.

Eye of the Tiger

2011-06-19T19:57:00.000-04:00

I had intended to show you the super sparkly yarn I spun last week today, but it is still at my LYS being evaluated by the spinning teacher for the Summer of Socks and Lace contest, so alas, you'll have to wait to see it. (Trust me when I tell you it will be worth it -- I am ridiculously in love with that yarn.)

Instead, for this Sunday's post, here's a look at what I've been spinning on my Lendrum in the past week.

This is the Columbia wool that came from Crown Mountain Farms as May's shipment for this year's fiber club. The colors aren't registering exactly true here (it's more orange and brown in real life), but doesn't it remind you of an old crocheted afghan your grandparents used to have on their couch? Okay, maybe that's just my memory, but the color scheme does seem a little '70s to me, which is certainly a perfect fit for something called Eye of the Tiger.

This is the first time I've spun this particular breed, and I'm finding it an interesting spin. It's very springy and spongy, so I have a feeling this will be a yarn that will poof up in the finishing process. I'm spinning this on my Lendrum rather than my miniSpinner -- and you may wonder why when I tell you that the green yarn I have yet to show you was spun and plied in four days on it. Unfortunately, this particular batch of wool is very neppy and has a somewhat surprising amount of VM in it. I don't mind it so much, as I can easily pull out a piece of hay every now and then, but because of how often I'm stopping to do that, it really makes more sense to use the wheel I can start and stop easily. Plus, as amazing as the speed of the miniSpinner is, the Lendrum is my first love and it's so relaxing to sit and treadle and enjoy the process -- not to mention that the beauty of having two wheels is that I can work on two projects at a time.

I'm planning on finishing up the first bobbin tonight and will spin up a second bobbin probably this week. I'm hoping that this will be about a fingering weight when it's done so it will count toward the contest, but more than anything I'll be looking forward to being done with it so I can spin something in a different color (orange is not my favorite!). Although the June shipment from the fiber club is orange and yellow ...

Wowed

2011-06-16T20:14:00.001-04:00

I have to say that I am truly amazed by the response to my last post. I greatly appreciate what you all had to say and the fact that you said it; while at its heart this blog is about me and my process, it really wouldn't be the same without readers and without the interaction and dialogue that your comments create. I've responded to those of you who have an e-mail address associated with your Blogger account, but for those of you who don't, please consider this my most heartfelt thank you for sharing your thoughts. Had there been no response, I would have likely given up the blog in favor of more time to knit and spin, but I am really pleased and happy to know that there are people out there who are interested in what I'm doing, and so rest assured I will continue blogging!

I certainly understand that there are many of you who don't like to comment or just choose not to, and that's fine. Please know, though, that it really makes my day to know that someone is interested enough in what I have to say or in what I'm working on that they leave me a comment. I'm going to do my best to comment more often on the blogs I read (even though I'm guilty of reading many of them through Google Reader!), even if it's just a couple of words to say, "Hi, I'm reading and I'm enjoying!"

I'm going to keep the poll up until it runs out, but I'm getting a sense that what I have been doing has been working, so I'm not going to mess with what's not broken.

Since last we talked about actual knitting, I've been dutifully working on my Essential Cardigan, for which the end is finally in sight. Because the sleeves were so close to being done, last Friday morning I blocked the other pieces so they'd be ready once I finished up the sleeves. That happened on Monday, and as soon as they were bound off I sewed the shoulder seams of the body. The pattern says to sew all the seams before picking up for the button/neck band, but that just seems silly to me -- why have to turn an entire sweater if I can avoid it? On Tuesday night, I sat down and picked up the 200+ stitches for the button/neck band (it's one long piece up one side, around the neck, and down the other side); amazingly, I managed to get the specified number of stitches picked up and I did so on the first try! That has to be a good sign. The rows are very long, and the WS rows especially take a long time because they're essentially 1x1 rib, but once I'm done, I'm done. By the end of knit night last night, I had about an inch done, and I have to get to four inches total, so I figure it should take me about another week to finish knitting and get the rest of the seaming done (assuming I'm a good girl and work on this project).

Doesn't this look exciting?

I also finished up a pair of baby socks yesterday. I'd been working on them during my lunch breaks, so only a little bit at a time, but luckily baby socks are so small that they go really quickly. These are being added to the pile of baby items I'm making for a Ravelry service project; I still have to make another washcloth and a couple of hats to fulfill my pledge. These were made from some Patons Stretch Socks that I picked up on clearance at Michaels for about $3. I found another ball that is a pink variegated colorway that might have to be turned into some socks for Rainbow. It's certainly not a luxurious sock yarn, but it's washable and knits into a comfy fabric, and the price was certainly right!

I will have some pretty spinning to show you this weekend and I've been dreaming about some designs in addition to working on them in my waking hours, so it looks as though my mojo may be coming back!

Thoughts on Blogging

2011-06-14T17:30:00.002-04:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about blogging and what it's become for me. I started this blog about five and a half years ago, just when I was getting serious about knitting and just when I was first discovering all the online resources that were out there. Because of the blog (and, more generally, due to my discovery of the fact that there were such things as knitting blogs), I've made good friends online and in real life. I've truly developed into a Knitter-with-a-capital-K and become a spinner as well. I've even started doing some designing.

The blog started out as an outlet for me when I was between jobs and alone much of the day. I'd always kept diaries and journals, so this was yet another way for me to think things through and record my thoughts, though in this case they were specific to crafting. Then it became a way for me to keep track of projects -- what yarn I'd used, what adjustments I'd made, what problems I'd encountered and how I'd solved them. Finally, it became a way for me to connect with other knitters, both those I knew in real life and those I only knew in the virtual world.

Obviously, once Rainbow was born, my time to blog shrank dramatically. Still, I knew (or at least hoped!) there were people still reading, so I tried to post regularly, albeit with some reduced frequency. Lately I've been aiming for two posts a week, which has been pretty doable. I've tried not to let spinning take over the blog because this was, after all, started as a knitting blog. But I've also struggled because there are times when I'm just not doing much knitting and I don't feel like I have much to say.

I think it's also important to note that the blog started in the days before Ravelry. At the time, it was great for me to have a place to document all the stages and details of a project, but now that I can do that in my Ravelry notebook, the blog starts to seem a little redundant. That said, I do still like the writing aspect of a blog post; I suppose I could write copious notes in the relevant section of my project page, but hitting "Save" doesn't seem to give me quite the same sense of satisfaction as does hitting "Publish Post."

I guess where all this is going is that I'd love to get your feedback, dear readers (if, in fact, there are any of you left!), on where this blog is heading. I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a bit of a comment "hoar," as they say on Ravelry, and I've notice that for the past month or so, there have been very few comments on my posts. I know that I read a lot of blogs and don't always post, so I'm sure some of you are still reading, but it would be nice to know for sure! If you're reading but not commenting, I'd love to know why. Are you too busy? Not interested in what I have to post? Something else entirely? If I do decide to keep this blog up and running, I would like it to be useful, and one of the most useful things I've found about it is the dialogue it has started with readers.

In the interest of doing some market research, I've put up a poll in the sidebar. It'll be up for the next week. Please feel free to leave a comment as well! (Oh, and you'll also notice that I changed the layout again. Seems I was still in the dark ages of Blogger and wasn't using all the tools available because I hadn't upgraded my template.)

Down to Earth, Part I

2011-06-12T19:54:00.007-04:00

Those of you who know my spinning know that my favorite dyer is Kristin at All Spun Up. When I first discovered her Etsy store, very few people knew about her, so it was relatively easy to get my hands on some of her hand-dyed fiber. Of course, once handspun from her fiber started showing up on Ravelry, it wasn't long before she became incredibly popular -- to the point where if you didn't pounce the minute she posted an update to the store, you couldn't get any of her fiber.

Thankfully, Kristin has been doing regular spinalongs. She posts ahead of time what the fiber blend will be (though the colorway is a mystery), and if you want to participate, you post in a thread on her Ravelry group so she has an idea of how much fiber to dye. The listing is then up for a couple of days, and as long as you check within 24-48 hours of the listing, chances are good that you can get some of this much-coveted fiber.

For this May/June, the fiber blend was merino/silk (an 80%/20% blend), so I signed up for a double dose of 8 ounces. The dye job did not disappoint -- she calls this particular colorway Down to Earth.

For now, I started with half of the fiber and spun a very thin single (I'm not sure I realized just how thin it was), then chain plied it to keep the colors distinct.

I am completely thrilled with how this turned out. As I was spinning it, it made me think of a seascape -- the pale blue of the water, the white of the sea foam, the brown of the sand and pieces of driftwood, and the gray of a cloudy sky. And of course there is nothing like the experience of spinning this fiber blend; it is just luscious going through your fingers, and the resulting yarn is soft, silky, and light.

This skein also marks my first entry into my LYS' Summer of Socks and Lace contest. I was aiming for fingering weight, but at more than 600 yards for my 4 ounces, it's on the light side of that.

I have no idea what this will grow up to be, but in the meantime, I will be very happy just wearing it wrapped around my neck! I still have another 4 ounces to play with, so perhaps I'll have a matching skein for this in the near future.

Playing Hooky

2011-06-10T08:50:00.002-04:00

Wonder why I'm posting at 9 a.m. on a Friday? It's because I'm playing hooky today -- well, actually just taking a day off. I had a couple of days that I was going to lose by the end of the month, so I figured I'd take a couple of Fridays off just for me. As soon as my LYS opens, I'm planning on taking my miniSpinner, some knitting, and some brownies that are in the oven right now and planting myself on their couch for the day.

I've spent most of my crafty time this week at my wheel, plying up some yarn that you'll see on Sunday, but I've also been a good girl and have been working on the sleeves of my Essential Cardigan. As of last night, I have about 20 rows left on my sleeve caps.

I'm still pretty bored by this project, but at least the end is now in sight. I'm going to block the back and front pieces while I finish the sleeves, and then I'll be able to start on the collar/button bands while the sleeves block. I have a feeling that last part of the knitting is going to take a while, but I'm hoping that the fact that it's the last thing to do will motivate me to keep going and get it done.

I had some handspun leftover from Steven's socks, so I made a quick pair of baby socks during my lunch breaks this week.

These are going toward a charity knitting project on Ravelry. I'm hoping they'll make someone's feet very happy!

Spinning Sunday: Handspun FO Edition

2011-06-05T19:42:00.005-04:00

Today's edition of Spinning Sunday comes not with shots of handspun or handspun in progress but rather something actually knit with handspun (it's rare, I know! I'm doing my best to remedy that). You may remember that I've made some reference in recent posts to a pair of handspun socks that I'd been working on. I couldn't show them to you before because they were a surprise, but they were presented to the recipient yesterday, so I can finally reveal them.

Here they are! As of yesterday, these are now gracing the feet of Steven. I'm sure you're wondering what he did to deserve a pair of handknit, handspun socks. Well let me tell you. A couple of months ago, when he thought he was soon to be leaving town, he did a bit of fiber destashing, and apparently he thought I was worthy of some really nice stuff. I haven't had a chance to document it on the blog just yet, but boy did I get an extraordinarily generous surprise from him -- in the form of samples of uber-luxurious fiber. We're talking silk, silk and cashmere, and yak (or was it bison? it's super soft, whatever it is). I haven't yet worked up the courage to try to spin any of it yet, but I've been petting it plenty.

This unexpected windfall was such an amazing surprise. I knew that the proper way to say thanks was with wool, and if you know Steven, you know that he loves handknit socks but rarely makes any for himself. I had the perfect man-friendly skein of superwash merino sock yarn in the stash and I knew it would be perfect for him.

Thankfully, Steven prefers ankle socks -- I say thankfully because he has large feet, or at least large relative to the feet I'm used to knitting for! With 80 stitches cast on, I kept it simple: an inch of 2x2 ribbing and a stockinette foot with a wedge toe. For such simple socks, they did take a while! Here they are with a pair of my socks on top for reference.

In any case, when I gave them to Steven, he immediately took off his shoes and socks and put them on, despite the fact that it was 80+ degrees outside. I think that means they're a success!

Slump?

2011-05-31T20:44:00.004-04:00

I'm not sure why it is, but I seem to have hit a knitting slump. I just don't have much of an urge to knit anymore -- mostly because all I want to do is spin! I have been diligently working on the projects that have deadlines, such as the handspun socks, which are finished and blocked and ready to be handed over to the recipient (that handover just has to be scheduled). I've also finished my two squares for the charity blanket.

These are both adaptations of washcloth patterns I found on Ravelry, and I managed to get both out of less than one skein of Cotton Supreme (with leftovers, even). These will be shipped out to the U.S. coordinator on Saturday.

I haven't touched my Essential Cardigan sleeves in about a week, though I'm determined to pull them out at knit night tomorrow. I think my lack of desire to work on them might have something to do with the fact that we're in the middle of a 90+ degree heat wave -- even a lightweight sweater is completely useless in this heat! As I'm in no rush to wear it, I think it's probably okay if I take a little break, at least until it's back in the 80s.

It really has been all about the spinning lately. I'm nearly done spinning the singles from the most recent All Spun Up spinalong fiber (merino/silk -- luscious!), which will be chain plied when they're done, and I've been working on a long-dormant spindling project. And today, while I was home with Rainbow (daycare was closed in preparation for summer camp, so I took a day off), this arrived:

This is the June shipment from Crown Mountain Farms, Perendale (4 oz.) in a colorway called the Fifth Element. Yes, it really is that bright in real life! Should make for an interesting spin.

Brief Hibernation

2011-05-25T20:03:00.000-04:00

I worked on my Essential Cardigan sleeves over the weekend and got about halfway through the increase section, but I've but them aside for the time being to work on some charity knitting.

If you're on Ravelry and hang out in the Remrants board/group, then you know the sad story of a Raveler who recently lost her husband to cancer. They're both young and they'd been married only a short time -- a sad story all around. A number of Ravelers wanted to do something special for her, so there are several projects going to shower her with knitted (and crocheted) love. I'm knitting up a couple of blanket squares. The organizers asked that all yarn to be used for the squares be washable, so I'm using some Cotton Supreme leftover from the most recent Shedir (I'd bought two skeins to be on the safe side but used only part of one). The theme of the squares is to be "love," so I'm going with the obvious and using a heart motif. This particular square is based on a dishcloth pattern I found through Ravelry.

I'm planning a different heart pattern for the second square, which I hope to have finished up by the end of the weekend. I generally don't like knitting squares -- too much like swatching! -- but I'm finding this little project to be a good break from the monotony of my sweater sleeves.

Otherwise, I'm still working on the pair of handspun socks and have just a few more inches of foot to knit on the second sock before I can start the toe.

I've also been spinning a fair amount, because my LYS's Summer of Socks and Lace contest officially kicked off earlier this week and this year there's a spinning component. Specifically, the winner of the spinning competition will be the person who spins the most lace and sock yarn by weight, and yarns spun from fiber purchased at the shop count for weight and a half. I made a few acquisitions when I was there a couple of weeks ago and put them away so I wouldn't be tempted, but now it's time to get them out!

Clapping with One Hand

2011-05-22T20:12:00.004-04:00

No, the title of this post doesn't have anything to do with philosophy or meditating or anything like that. It's the colorway of my most recent spin, 4 ounces of Border Leicester from Crown Mountain Farms that made up the April shipment of the 2011 fiber club.

This breed, like so many other shipments, was new to me. Border Leicester is a long wool, so more wavy than crimpy, and this particular batch had a beautiful luster to it. I didn't want to spin it too thin because I worried it would turn out wiry, so I opted for a quick-and-dirty two ply. It turned out just as I wanted.

The finished yarn is about a worsted weight and roughly 140 yards. It is silky and lustrous, though not quite next-to-the-skin soft. I think this would make a lovely hat or pair of mittens, perhaps lined with something super soft. It was also great for some immediate gratification spinning after spinning and plying all that laceweight -- I spun the singles over the course of about a week and plied the whole finished skein in a couple of hours last Sunday afternoon.

I enjoyed working with this fiber, though I'm not sure it's something I would have chosen on my own. It makes me think that I might be able to tackle last year's Lincoln!

Ennui?

2011-05-19T19:59:00.000-04:00

I feel like I am in a bit of a rut with my knitting these days. I've been doing a fair amount of designing lately, which is exciting, except that it means knitting the same thing several times and not being able to show it to you if I want to try to publish it -- in short, it's good for my creative side but bad for the blog. The only thing I've really been working on that I can share with you is my Essential Cardigan, and that's just strips of stockinette -- again, not so great for the blog. I finished the second front on Tuesday evening and cast on for the sleeves immediately after. I'm working them both at once to avoid the horrible feeling that comes with finishing one sleeve only to realize you have to knit another. Plus, this way I know that they'll match (or at least they will in theory).

Last night, despite the fact that a certain toddler had woken me up at 3:45 a.m. and kept me from getting enough sleep, I did manage to get to Hurricane Knitting, where I slogged through the ribbed cuff (the pattern is 1x1 ribbing on the wrong side and knit on the right side; I have come to realize that there are few things in the world I dislike knitting as much as 1x1 ribbing because it takes so friggin' long). I have a few more rows to work before I start increasing, but at least now I'm working in plain stockinette on the larger needles, so I don't have to pay attention to much of anything.

I was thinking the other night that this sweater seems to be knitting up fairly quickly given that it's in a lighter weight of yarn than most of the sweaters I've knit, but then I remembered that a pretty fair portion of it is in the ribbed collar/button band combo thing, and that involves the dreaded stitch pattern with the 1x1 rib. I know this sweater is going to be really comfy and versatile when it's done, though, so I just need to power through.

I've also been working on some socks with this handspun -- just plain socks in stockinette, in order to let the yarn be the star -- so you can see why I've been experiencing a bit of knitting ennui lately. Gray yarn just isn't all that inspiring, even if it does go with everything.

With all this gray stockinette, I am craving a little color and variety of stitch pattern, so I may cast on soon for Wendy Johnson's Summer Mystery Shawlette. I'm thinking that perhaps a skein of my handspun might work nicely for this. Time to dig through the stash!

Spinning Outside My Comfort Zone

2011-05-15T20:49:00.004-04:00

My latest handspun yarn was all about spinning that is not my usual. This Coopworth came as the March shipment from the Crown Mountain Farms fiber club; the colorway is called Hittite Kingdom. The fiber felt very springy in the hank, so I decided to try to spin it as a thicker two ply, thinking it would make some great mittens.

In the process of spinning it, I found that it was really difficult to spin a consistent single, mostly due to a lot of nepps. Because I was trying very hard not to spin my default yarn, I left most of these nepps in, figuring that they would lead to a more textured yarn. And that is just what I got.

The finished yarn is probably around a heavy worsted weight and approximately 166 yards. It's a little underplied for my taste, but I think that's due to the fact that this was the first yarn I plied on my miniSpinner and I was clearly still getting the hang of it. I will say that the skein was balanced when I took it off the niddy noddy, so my taste in tight twist doesn't necessarily mean that there's not enough.

All in all, I'd call this yarn satisfactory. I didn't hate spinning this fiber, but I didn't love it either. I'm a bit noncommittal about the colorway, too, though it is neutral enough that whatever I make with it, be it mittens or something else, should go with lots of things.

MDSW: The Recap

2011-05-10T19:44:00.000-04:00

What a weekend! As a MDSW virgin, I found there to be a lot to take in at this festival, but all in all I had a great time. The weather was perfect (mostly sunny and in the low 70s), the company was fab, and the shopping was spectacular!

I drove down on Friday afternoon with my friend Yvonne, who was kind enough to let me not only mooch a ride from her but stay with her and her friend Kim as well. We settled in to our hotel room, did a bit of knitting and chatting, and then headed out for a delicious crab cake dinner at G & M Restaurant (when in Maryland, one must eat crab cakes!).

The next morning, we were up bright and early (I actually woke up on my own at the time I normally get up during the week!), had a quick breakfast at the hotel, and were at the fairgrounds by 8 a.m. Though the festival technically didn't open until 9, they were letting people onto the grounds by then. Some vendors were already open, though we headed straight toward Jennie the Potter's booth because Yvonne had sleuthed out that she had a limited number of MDSW mugs featuring a crab in addition to the traditional sheep. Her booth wasn't opening until 8:30, so we stood and waited while we chatted with the folks who were helping her to set up. It took me a few minutes before I realized that one of the helpers we were talking to was Amy Singer -- yes, that Amy Singer. (Yvonne promptly made fun of me for being star struck at this point.)

Our mugs in tow, we headed next to the main barn, where Yvonne and Kim went to see the Miss Babs booth and I went in search of spinning things. By 10 a.m., I had found pretty much everything I'd come to the festival in search of, though I did spend the rest of the day looking around and picked up a couple bundles of fiber. Want to see my haul?

The main thing I wanted to find at the festival was a lazy kate for my miniSpinner. I had heard from other mS spinners on Ravelry that the Nancy's Knit Knacks Katie-a-Go-Go would hold the WooLee Winder bobbins, so I was in search of one. I found one at the Mannings' booth, where I got to watch Henry Clemes of Clemes & Clemes spin on one of their wheels while waiting in a very slow-moving line.

I was also potentially interested in buying a spindle or two at the festival, and one I was particularly interested in looking for was a Jenkins Turkish spindle. I found this beautiful one at the Carolina Homespun booth (very fitting, as that's who sold me my Lendrum three years ago).

Isn't it gorgeous? It's Bloodwood and 0.95 oz. and positively tiny compared to the spindle I learned on. The fiber on it is some cormo I picked up later in the afternoon at the American Cormo Sheep Association booth. I am just enchanted by how the cop of spun singles is wound onto this type of spindle.

I should have been satisfied with my one beautiful spindle, but I was shopping with Colleen, a new spinner, at that point, and we both went a little crazy when we saw the Bosworth booth. I ended up buying this 1 oz. Redheart Midi (I started spinning on it that evening with some Gale's Art corriedale blend).

Now, I was not really a spindle spinner before this, but in using these two new spindles, I discovered that buying good tools really does make the process easier. I can now say that I am hooked!

We left the festival for the day a little before 3 on Saturday because we all wanted to sit and relax for a bit. I ended up going out to dinner with some family friends Saturday night while the rest of the crew went to a Thai restaurant they'd found and loved last year, but we all met up in the hotel room later to knit and chat.

We were up again fairly early on Sunday morning, but as we had to pack up the cars with all our stuff and check out of the hotel before we left, we didn't get quite as early a start as we did the day before. It ended up not mattering much, as we still got a really good parking spot and all of us had already done most of our shopping. We headed to the Fold's booth, now that the crazy line from Saturday was gone, and I made my last acquisition of the trip -- a tiny 1 oz. bundle of Tussah silk from Blue Moon Fiber Arts in the colorway Pepe le Plume.

Okay, that's not true -- technically, there was one more acquisition, but I don't have anything to show you. Why, you ask? Well, here it is: I bought a fleece. Yes, I caved and bought a fleece. My friend Jenn, who is new-ish to the Hurricane Knitters and who knows about fleeces because she spins and also used to have sheep, was volunteering at the fleece sale and ~~enabled me~~ helped me to select a good fleece. I picked up a lovely cream-colored Romney fleece that was marked 4 lbs. but actually weighed in at 5 lbs. when I took it to the processors. It was a good price, in my estimation ($32 total, which translates to about 40 cents an ounce), and it's now in the hands of Ozark Carding Mill, where it will be washed and carded into roving and then delivered to my door in roughly 12 weeks.

Yvonne and I got on the road, this time with Steven in the back seat, at about noon, and she dropped me off at home at about 4:30. It was a beautiful day for a drive, and I even managed to finish the back of my Essential Cardigan on the way.

So, all in all, I'd say it was a very successful weekend. My wallet came home a bit lighter, but I'm very satisfied with my purchases and am not suffering from any buyer's remorse. I really enjoyed the festival and the company, and I know now that this is going to be an annual event as long as I can swing it.

Completely Enchanted

2011-05-08T17:20:00.004-04:00

On Thursday night, as I was wrapping up things and getting ready to head to MDSW, one of the things on my list was to skein up the finished yarn from the latest All Spun Up spinalong. I believe the last time you saw it, the singles were halfway done.

The name of this colorway is "Enchanted," which perfectly described how I felt about this fiber. Shades of blue and green, my two favorite colors, on a luscious blend of 50% fine alpaca, 30% merino, and 20% silk -- what's not to love? I knew I wanted it to be a two-ply laceweight, and the singles were definitely the finest I've ever spun. I used my miniSpinner for the first time (other than the bit of practice I did with the sample fiber that was included with it when it first arrived) to do the plying, because I knew it was going to take a long time. Even with the electric spinner, it still took me about a week of plying sessions to get it all done.

When I finished skeining it up, I realized why: My 4.125 oz. of fiber yielded more than 1,000 yards of yarn that is roughly 36 wpi. And I love it.

Now the challenge will be to find the ultimate pattern for this yarn! Suggestions are welcome.

Coming up soon: a recap of MDSW!

Fin.

2011-05-02T19:46:00.000-04:00

I feel as if I've reached a key milestone in my "career" as a knitter and spinner: I can now officially say that I have knit my first sweater from my own handspun.

You may recall that at the beginning of this year, I set out to spin up two pounds of some mystery wool I had inherited from a friend into enough yarn for a sweater. I knew that this sweater project was ambitious and so made it one of my spinning goals for the entire year -- by year's end, I had hoped to have spun up enough yarn for the sweater and knit it. I didn't have any specific pattern in mind, seeing as I had no idea how much yardage I'd get from the fiber, but I was aiming for a three-ply worsted weight yarn, as that seemed to be a weight that would yield a lot of options in terms of patterns to choose from and one that would be fairly time-efficient to spin (I knew that if I spun my usual thickness of yarn, I'd be spinning most of the year and would need several more months to knit up the resulting fingering weight yarn into a sweater). Moreover, I wanted to spin something a little thicker because I intended to spin all the singles at once, without spinning anything else in between, in an effort to keep them as consistent as possible.

I began spinning on January 1 and did, on average, an ounce of singles a day. I had separated out my fiber into one-ounce bundles ahead of time to make this process a little easier. After I spun an ounce, I let the singles rest on the bobbin for a day or two and then wound them off onto my ball winder and transferred the resulting center-pull ball onto a toilet paper or paper towel tube for storage. I ended up spinning a total of 30 ounces, which left a little bit of fiber from the original two pounds that I saved in case I wanted or needed to spin up some thinner yarn for seaming my sweater.

The plying phase went much more quickly. I wanted to randomize my singles to some extent to combat any unevenness between them, but because I am also a little anal about things, I also wanted to have a system for how I plied them. I ended up plying the first, 11th, and 21st "bobbin" of singles and then the second, 12th, and 22nd and so on. I stopped plying when the first of the three storage bobbins I was plying from ran out and threw whatever was left on the other two into a bag for later. After I had my 10 skeins of plied yarn finished, I plied up an 11th skein with all the leftovers, adding in more each time one ran out. In the end, I had approximately 1,250 yards of three-ply worsted weight yarn, spun in about six weeks, with virtually nothing leftover.

Now came the hard part: picking the sweater pattern. The Ravelry database was enormously helpful once I had some specific parameters set regarding the yarn weight and yardage available, but looking through the patterns on Ravelry can sometimes be more confusing than helpful because there are so many great patterns from which to choose. Then I happened to be listening to Chrissy over at the Manic Purl Podcast and heard her talk about the sweater she was working on. When I looked it up on Ravelry, it seemed perfect: The yardage and yarn weight specifications fit, it had a nice mix of fabric textures, and it had a look I loved. Without much thought, I bought and downloaded the pattern. I swatched almost immediately, got gauge, and cast on on February 20.

And a little more than a week ago, I finished the last of the seaming and weaving in of ends and sewed on the buttons -- less than four months from fiber to sweater.

Pattern: Acer Cardigan (Ravelry link) by Amy Christoffers, 38" bust size
Yarn: my handspun, three-ply worsted weight from mystery wool
Needles: US 6 (4.0 mm) Knit Picks Options and US 5 (3.75 mm) KP Options for button bands and collar
Started/Completed: February 20/April 23
Mods: added more length to the body and picked up more stitches than specified for the button bands and collar

I really enjoyed knitting this pattern. The construction of the sweater was a bit new to me, which was part of the enjoyment. The body is knit back and forth in one piece from the bottom up to the armholes, at which point stitches are bound off for the underarms and the back and fronts are worked separately. The shaping at the shoulder is worked in short rows and the seams are joined using a three-needle bind off. The sleeves are knit in the round from the cuff up to the underarm, where again stitches are bound off, and then the sleeve cap is worked flat. Finally, the sleeves are set in to the armscye in the round (and frankly that's what scared me a bit at the end, because set-in sleeves always give me trouble and I'd never done one in the round, but they ended up being a lot easier than a typical set-in sleeve).

I did add some length -- I think about an inch -- to the body because when I'd knit to the specified length, it was hitting me in an unflattering spot and I knew any shirt I'd wear underneath it would likely hang out the bottom if I didn't make it a little longer. I also had to fudge the numbers for the button bands and collar a bit, as you may remember, though that's a pretty typical mod for me to make because I never can seem to pick up the same number of stitches as the designer. That didn't bother me too much, because I was more concerned with getting a button band that fit the sweater (and obviously I needed more stitches because the body of the sweater was longer). I believe that I ended up adding an additional buttonhole and button because of this added length as well. The buttons themselves came from my grab bag of buttons; they're a dark blue that I selected mainly because they were the right size for the buttonholes, I was able to find the right number of them in the bag, and I was too lazy to wait until I had a chance to go button shopping. I think they're actually a pretty good match for the sweater; I didn't want anything to draw attention away from the details in the sweater or the yarn, so in that respect, I think they're a success.

The pattern was, for the most part, a delight to knit. It's very clearly written, with easy-to-read charts, a schematic, and only a few pictures that show key parts of the design. I did run across a couple of areas of difficulty, though, that I think you should be aware of should you decide to knit it yourself. The first was a very obvious typo near the end of the directions for finishing the back where it's clear that several words were copied and pasted or typed twice; I sent the designer a message on Ravelry about this, and she said that she is going to be correcting the error in the PDF. It's not an error that will cause a mistake, though, so if you already have the pattern or buy it before the correction is made, you won't have a problem. Though I didn't really follow the numbers, as I mentioned above, I'm not convinced that all the numbers given for the collar are correct. It should be a multiple of four plus two (it's a 2x2 rib but the first two and last two stitches should be knit as seen from the right side). The smallest size and the largest three sizes all have numbers that are multiples of four only, so if you're knitting one of these sizes and are picking up the number of stitches specified, keep in mind that you will need to add in two more stitches somewhere. Finally, though the supplies list on the first page of the pattern does say that you'll need a size 5 needle "for edging," the directions do not specifically state that you should switch to the smaller needle when you get to the button bands. This is probably something I should have marked myself so I wouldn't forget, but I did forget and had to rip out my first attempt at a button band because of it, so it would have been nice to have had it stated explicitly in the directions.

Overall, I am very pleased with how my sweater tuned out. I did have a fair amount of yarn left over, including the rest of the skein I used for my swatch, so the yardage estimate seems to have been pretty accurate. It fits perfectly and is the right length, and obviously it was a fun knit. Unfortunately, it's also as itchy as all get out, even when worn with a long-sleeved shirt underneath (as it was on Saturday morning, when it was still a little chilly outside and I decided to give the sweater its first wearing). I still have no idea what breed of sheep the fiber came from, though my guess is that it's a dual-coated sheep based on the coarser guard hairs that both fell out as I was spinning and stick out and poke me when I wear the sweater. I even gave the sweater a good long soak in the tub with some hair conditioner when it was finally all sewn up and finished in the hope that it would soften some, but it's still extremely rough and rustic.

So, my big spinning project for the year is finished. While the sweater I ended up with isn't the softest, most luxurious garment ever, it is very warm and I can tell that it will wear well and will last for many years to come. The bigger sense of accomplishment, to me, comes from the fact that I was able to spin enough yarn to knit a sweater in a relatively short period of time and to the specifications I wanted. I know that I can do it now and that this handspun sweater will not be my last.

Next in Line, Please

2011-04-26T19:56:00.006-04:00

First things first: My Acer Cardigan is finished, blocked, and dry, but alas, we are in the middle of a particularly stormy April here, so I am waiting for the sun to come out again for a proper photo shoot. The forecast is looking promising for this Saturday, so watch this space.

Now that I finished the sweater -- a full two weeks ahead of my self-imposed deadline of Maryland Sheep and Wool -- I'm not feeling any real pressure, but I did feel the urge to cast on for something new.

I've had my eye on the Essential Cardigan from last summer's Interweave Knits since the issue arrived in my mailbox. It's a really classic, versatile sweater, and I knew that in the right yarn it could be a good year-round sweater. As it happened, I was pretty sure I had a suitable yarn in my stash already, and that's how I came to liberate some very well marinated Elsebeth Lavold Silky Tweed from my fiber room. I swatched it up on Sunday and it came out just as I wanted it to -- soft, silky, and drapey.

It's hard to capture the texture and depth of this yarn (especially in this lack-of-sun light). At first glance, it's a charcoal-y gray, but there are flecks of light blue and white in it as well. My gauge is ever so slightly off (by half a stitch over four inches), but it's actually going to work to my advantage because I am between sizes in the pattern and want a little bit of positive ease.

I'm not in any rush to finish this sweater, but it should be a fairly quick knit despite the smaller needles relative to my Acer. With the exception of the ribbing at the hem, cuffs, and around the neckline and button bands, it's all stockinette -- I can do that in my sleep! I think this should make some very good car knitting for the drive to Maryland!

Ever So Close

2011-04-21T20:05:00.002-04:00

I haven't posted about my Acer Cardigan in a while because it went into brief (and probably undeserved) hibernation. I was about halfway through the increases on the second sleeve while knitting at my LYS when my friend, who is also the store manager, asked me if I would mind knitting a sample for the shop. It was just a simple ribbed scarf, and would be a short one at that, so I of course said yes. It took me maybe a week to knit the thing, which isn't bad at all considering how much I usually loathe knitting scarves, but that meant that the sleeve was ignored until the scarf was done.

Fortunately, once the sample knitting was done, I was able to make fast work of that sleeve. I finished up the sleeve cap and bound off last night at Hurricane Knitting. I had already done the three-needle bind off on the shoulders when I finished the body, so once the sleeve was done, the next step was to start in the button bands.

Picking up stitches for button bands and collars and things always makes me a bit nuts because I can never seem to pick up the right number. This time around, I decided to be a little logical about how I was going to do it, especially because my row gauge was a little off and I knew I'd have to pick up more stitches than specified. The ratio of stitches to rows in this pattern's gauge was about 7 to 10, so I rounded that a bit and decided to pick up about three stitches for every four rows. I also took into account the pattern for the button band, which is in a 2x2 rib with an extra stitch at the bottom and two extra stitches at the top -- or, in other words, a multiple of 4 plus 3. I figured I could follow my 3 stitches for every 4 rows guideline and fudge it a bit if I had to to get a multiple of 4 plus 3. I picked up all the stitches according to this plan and was pleased that I ended up picking up the first three stitches and also the last three without trying (I really don't like it when my button band doesn't line up with, say, the cast on edge of the sweater). Then I counted the stitches, figuring I could undo a handful and pick up fewer or more to get a number that would work, and was amazed when I came up with 99 -- a multiple of 4 plus 3! It's a bit more than the recommended number for my size (which I think was about 83), but it looked just fine. Moreover, because I picked up exactly three stitches for every four rows, I know I can replicate it for the second button band.

This was clearly the extent of my knitting good luck for the night, because after finishing three rows before we were kicked out* of Barnes & Noble, I discovered that I had neglected to go down a needle size for the ribbing. So, as soon as I got home last night, I ripped back to the picked up stitches and started again with my size 5s. I managed to get the whole band knit and began the bind off while watching the hockey game (though I put it away and went to bed after the first overtime), so I should be able to finish it and get a good start on the other one tonight.

Once the button bands and collar are done, I'll have to face the music and set in the sleeves -- I'm saving it until the end mostly because I always have trouble sewing in set-in sleeves, and this is the first time I'll have to do it in the round -- and find some buttons. I am guessing I will have this done by the end of the month, so now I just have to hope that it's cool enough in Maryland to wear it at least once!

*Only because the store was closing -- we were actually on pretty good behavior last night.

A New Addition

2011-04-17T19:50:00.008-04:00

I celebrated a pretty big birthday last month and, after several months of talking about it, I decided it was time to add another addition to our family.

Meet the newest member of the Knit/Wit household:

What, you were expecting a pet or another baby? No way -- at least not yet (I have to work on The Mister with regard to both). No, the latest addition is a fancy shmancy new piece of spinning equipment, a HansenCrafts miniSpinner. This is an electric spinner; I hesitate to call it a wheel, because it doesn't have one. Instead of using a drive wheel and treadles to power it, it has a motor that turns the flyer. A dial at the front controls the rate of speed and, thus, the ratios, meaning that how fast I spin is no longer dependent on the ratio of my whorls or how fast I can move my feet.

This e-spinner also has something my Lendrum doesn't -- a WooLee Winder.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with this piece of equipment, it's basically a mechanism that automatically moves the yarn guide up and down the length of the bobbin, meaning the yarn winds on really evenly and, as a result, more fits on the bobbin. I didn't see a need to get one of these for my Lendrum, because it has a sliding yarn guide and I'm a certified Obsessive Hook Slider (i.e., I don't mind stopping while spinning to move the yarn guide a little at a time). However, the main advantage of an electric spinner like this is that you can keep the speed constant, which would make stopping to move the yarn guide kind of counterproductive.

Another big advantage of this e-spinner? The bobbin capacity -- just look at how it compares to one of my Lendrum bobbins:

I did a bit of practice on the new spinner with the fiber that was included with it, but I've got two full bobbins ready to be plied into laceweight!

Public Service Announcement

2011-04-12T21:03:00.004-04:00

Do you remember the Monkey socks I knit from Colinette Jitterbug three years ago? If not, I can tell you that I enjoyed the yarn while I knit with it and loved the resulting socks, but I was a bit disappointed with the yardage in the skein as well as with some knots.

Unfortunately, I have more bad news. Despite how often I've worn these socks over the past three years and despite the vinegar I've added to various washes, I regret to inform you that ...

they're still bleeding.

One of Two

2011-04-07T20:15:00.004-04:00

We have a sleeve! Finished at knit night last night and it fits perfectly.

Would you like to admire my sleeve cap shaping? Of course you would.

The second sleeve will be cast on this evening and I anticipate a matching pair in another week or so!

In the Spinning Queue

2011-04-03T19:57:00.007-04:00

Little progress has been made on my alpaca/merino/silk since last you saw it; I'm hoping to be a little more productive this week.

Today I finally got a chance to photograph some fiber that's up next in the spinning queue -- the most recent shipments from the Crown Mountain Farms fiber club.

March's shipment was Coopworth in a colorway called Hittite Kingdom. This fiber is new to me. It's not the softest of fiber, but it has a nice sproing to it. I'm envisioning this as a thicker (worsted-ish) two ply. I think this would make some really nice mittens.

April's fiber arrived just a couple of days ago. This is Border Leicester, also new to me, in a colorway called Clapping with One Hand. This fiber is silky and wavy rather than crimpy. I get the sense that it will have great shine when spun up. This is likely also to be a two ply, perhaps a sport or DK-ish weight.

I'm excited to spin these fibers up, so I'm hoping that will give me the kick I need to finish the laceweight!

Sweater-shaped Object

2011-03-31T20:14:00.003-04:00

Though the calendar says spring here, Mother Nature clearly has other plans, because it's been in the 30s and 40s all week. As much as I hate the fact that tomorrow is April and I'm still wearing my winter coat, the chilly weather is conducive to sweater knitting. My Acer Cardigan is starting to resemble a sweater! I finished the back the other night and did the three-needle bind offs needed to join the shoulders.

(Yes, I'm aware that this is the worst picture ever. Have I mentioned it's also been snowing and therefore there's pretty much no sunlight?)

Now that the body is done, the rest of the knitting is pretty much smooth sailing. There's no patterning on the sleeves at all save for some ribbing at the cuffs, and they're knit in the round up to the sleeve cap, so I don't have to pay much attention. I managed to get about five inches knit in an hour and a half last night at knit night.

Assuming I can pull myself away from my spinning and some secret knitting, these sleeves should get knit up pretty quickly. I have about five weeks until Maryland Sheep and Wool, and I'm pretty confident this sweater will be done by then.

Half Spun

2011-03-27T14:42:00.002-04:00

My spinning has been extremely slow going because of how thin the singles are, but I managed to finish the first of my two bobbins the other day.

Every time I look at these colors I like them more. I hope that I'm able to get some good yardage out of this so I can knit something spectacular with it!

Stealth Shedir

2011-03-23T20:44:00.004-04:00

I believe this is the last of the unblogged projects, and you haven't even seen a peak of this one because it was a stealth project.

Pattern: Shedir (Ravelry link) by Jenna Wilson, Knitty Fall 2004

Yarn: Universal Yarns Cotton Supreme, less than one skein

Needles: US 3 (3.25 mm)

Started/Completed: January 15/January 29

Mods: omitted one round of the ribbing at the brim and two repeats of the cable pattern

I couldn't show you this project until now because it was a surprise: Several months ago, a friend's mother was diagnosed with cancer and began undergoing treatment. I felt like I needed to do something, so naturally I pulled out my knitting needles. My LYS didn't have the Rowan Calmer called for in the pattern, so in the interest in staying with a fiber that would be non-irritating, I selected a cotton. Unfortunately, this yarn -- while smooth and very soft -- was a little thicker than the Calmer, so my gauge went a bit wonky. I made a few adjustments to make up for the gauge issue, namely omitting a hefty number of rows, but I'm counting on the cotton yarn to shrink a bit when it's washed.

To be completely honest, working all these cables with a cotton yarn was not much fun for my hands, but I found the pattern to be completely enchanting and enjoyable. Maybe someday I find a skein of Calmer and knit one that will actually fit my head!

Many thanks to my friends at Natural Stitches, who allowed me to use their head to model this hat!

Still Enchanted

2011-03-20T19:51:00.003-04:00

The speed at which I was able to spin up the yarn for my sweater made me forget how long my spinning usually takes me, especially when I spin laceweight. Nevertheless, I am still thoroughly enjoying this spinalong fiber. I'm approaching the end of the first bobbin.

I don't think I could have designed this colorway to be any more me. Blues and greens? So my colors. The alpaca in the fiber gives this a slightly different look and feel than I'm used to, but the silk still gives the same amazing shine. I'm looking forward to seeing this yarn when it's finished!

Marching Forward

2011-03-14T20:03:00.002-04:00

Just a quick post for tonight, because my Mac and I are still getting to know each other and it took me 25 minutes to find the pictures I wanted to upload.

My Acer Cardigan is moving right along. I have a few more rows to do before I split for the fronts and back.

I'm currently on my fourth skein of yarn and already starting to freak out that I'll run out, even though I know I have more than the yardage specified. I have a feeling this sweater will start to move a lot faster once I do the split -- it's very slow going when you're doing the entire width of the sweater in each row.

Although I didn't get a chance to post yesterday, I do have a little bit of spinning to show you -- also slow going, because I'm spinning for lace. I absolutely love love love this fiber, though.

This is the alpaca/merino/silk from All Spun Up that is the February/March spinalong fiber. The colorway is called Enchanted, and it's certainly enchanted me! It's been a while since I spun anything with alpaca in it, so it took me a little while to get the hang of it. After all that dark brown, it's pure pleasure to spin my favorite colors again!

Plain and Simple

2011-03-08T20:00:00.005-05:00

Continuing in the backlog of projects, I have a very simple pair of socks that took an unreasonable amount of time to finish.

Pattern: a variation on my standard stockinette sock (see below)

Yarn: Knit Picks Bare (fingering weight), dyed with Kool Aid nearly five years ago, in a colorway I like to call Caribbean Amphibian or, alternatively, Robin*

Needles: two 12" US 1.5 (2.5 mm) Addi Turbo circs

Started/Completed: December 24, 2010/February 21, 2011

My regular stockinette sock recipe is 64 stitches around; for these socks, I cast on 65 stitches so I could work the cuff in 3x2 rib. I worked the ribbing for 3.5 inches and then switched over to stockinette, decreasing the extra stitch on the first stockinette round.

The heel was worked over half of the stitches, and I decided to jazz things up by working an Eye of Partridge heel rather than the usual slip stitch pattern. Something I've taken to doing lately with my heels is carrying the slipped stitches through the heel turn. It adds some extra durability to the heel, an area that often wears out faster than the rest of the sock, and I rather like how it looks.

I really like how the yarn ended up striping, and amazingly it didn't pool in the gussets. It appears that my first and only attempt at dyeing yarn was a success!

* If you're wondering where the colorway name came from, this video might illuminate you!

Celtic Glow

2011-03-06T20:57:00.005-05:00

After three solid plying sessions, I finished my January Crown Mountain Farms fiber shipment earlier this week. This particular shipment was South African wool in a stunning colorway called Celtic Glow.

Like fine merino, this wool seemed to like to be spun very fine, so I went for a three-ply fingering weight with this one. I ended up with approximately 377 yards.

I would have had more, but apparently I didn't do a great job of splitting my fiber because I had a significant amount leftover on two of my bobbins. I could have done some transferring and gotten more yardage out of what was left, but instead I decided to move the extra singles onto my leftovers bobbin, which is rapidly filling up. When it's full, I'll chain ply everything on it for a fun, scrappy yarn.

Just a Peek

2011-03-03T20:19:00.003-05:00

It's been an interesting week, and not very productive as far as knitting is concerned. Rainbow has been sick with croup, which in addition to making her sound like a barking seal also caused a rather high fever that had us up with her and on the phone with a nurse at Children's Hospital until very late Monday night (or very early Tuesday morning, depending on how you look at it). I've been dragging since then, so I haven't made much progress on anything. My Kool Aid socks are complete and taking a bath right now, and I made a little headway on my Acer Cardigan last night (but I'll wait until I can get some decent lighting to take a progress picture).

Meanwhile, during my lunchtime knitting, I've been working on a little design of my own invention. I may potentially try to publish it if I can get it to work out to my satisfaction, so for now all I can show you is a little cuff action.

I loves me some corrugated ribbing! I'm using up some more of the Knit Picks Palette from the stash for the test knit, though I have some nice yarn picked out for the real thing once I work out all the kinks.

I don't know about you, but I am ready for the weekend! One of my best friends, who I haven't seen since my wedding, is coming in for a visit this weekend, so I'm looking forward to catching up with her -- and, with any luck, on my sleep!

Spinning with Color

2011-02-27T19:52:00.002-05:00

After a month and a half of spinning nothing but the brown yarn for my sweater, I was thrilled to be able to get to something with color in it. It was also nice to spin my default thin singles again!

Once I started on this, it seemed to spin itself up in a very short period of time. This is South African from Crown Mountain Farms, the January shipment from this year's fiber club. The colorway is called Celtic Glow, and it's very well named, in my opinion. This photograph doesn't do it justice -- some of these green shades do indeed seem to be glowing! I started plying today after finishing the last bobbin of singles last night, and it's turning out to be a light fingering weight. This is my first time spinning this wool breed, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. It doesn't hurt that it's not brown and doesn't shed all over me while I spin!

Too Cute to Wear?

2011-02-23T20:26:00.008-05:00

I have a small backlog of projects I've yet to show you, and I finally got around to getting final (though rather bad) pictures of one. This goes into the "spun to finished" category.

Polwarth from All Spun Up, colorway A Somewhat Seuss-ish Trout:

Spun into a two-ply DK-ish weight yarn:

And knit up into a cute little hat:

Pattern: Aviatrix by Justine Turner (Ravelry link)
Yarn: handspun polwarth, as listed above
Needles: US 4 (3.5 mm) and US 5 (3.75 mm)
Started/Completed: December 6, 2010/December 15, 2010

I knit this up in time for Rainbow's first birthday -- that is, the knitting was finished in time for her birthday (actually, I'm pretty sure I cast off while she was napping/sleeping off her stomach bug on her birthday), but then the hat sat in my knitting bag for about a month and a half before I finally got around to sewing on the buttons and blocking it. Why it took so long for me to do a job that took all of five minutes is beyond me. Rainbow clearly wasn't in a hurry for me to finish it, though, as you can see from this picture:

Yes, we did force her to wear it, and she had a mini meltdown over it. She forgot about it after a couple of minutes and wore it happily all the way to daycare, but it was a no go when I tried to put it on again when I picked her up this afternoon. The girl just does not appreciate handknits yet!

Sweater Project, Week 7

2011-02-20T16:09:00.004-05:00

It took a full six weeks, but the yarn for my sweater is done. I finished plying the last skein (a mishmash of all the scraps from the previous skeins) last Sunday night. In all, I have 11 skeins that total roughly 1254 yards. It is worsted weight, about 10-11 wpi, which is just what I was going for.

My camera was not cooperating with me yesterday when I was trying to take advantage of the sun to get some good shots of it, so the color isn't very accurately represented here. In reality, it's a deep chocolate brown with some flecks of white here and there.

The above pictures were taken without the flash. The picture below is taken with the flash, and it's a little darker than the real thing, but you get the idea.

After determining my final yardage, I purchased the pattern for the Acer Cardigan and printed it out, and then last night, after Rainbow went to bed, I wound the first skein into a ball, turned on an episode of Masterpiece Classic on the DVR, and knit a swatch.

I was a good girl and let it soak in some water and dry overnight before I measured gauge. I got 20 stitches and 26 rows/4 inches -- spot on for stitch gauge, but half a row off on row gauge. Totally manageable. I cast on this afternoon!