Stripes All Around

Without having planned it, I find myself with three projects on the needles that all have stripes.

First there are the pink and gray socks, which I had expected to stripe given that they're being knit out of self-striping yarn. I worked to get both socks to match, and though I had to cheat a little bit after I finished the heel of the second sock and saw that I was a little off, from the front they're nearly perfect. I just have to finish the toe of the second sock and they'll be done (and that should happen very easily tonight).

Then there's my Kouyou, which is being knit out of handspun. The yarn was chain plied, so logically I knew it would stripe when knit up, but somehow it still surprised me. I do like the effect, and I'm moving right along on it. I did work additional rows of the stockinette portion to get it to be a bit bigger (the lace portion comes pretty much straight down from the stockinette, with no additional increases, so all the shaping has to happen before the lace starts). I plan on blocking it pretty aggressively, though I still think this shawl is going to come out more shawlette size. I don't really have an issue with that, but I'm hoping I won't have a ton of yarn leftover; if I do, it's likely to just wallow in my stash with the other leftovers.

Finally there's my Hitofude, which frankly hasn't gotten much attention the past week. I put in a handful of rows over an evening or two, so it hasn't gotten much bigger, but you can see that I'm now fully into the orange section of the gradient.

This project will, of course, have large stripes of each color as I work my way through the skein. I expect I'll be paying it more attention once I finish up the socks, because then the shawl will go to work with me. Unless I cast on a new pair of socks, of course (and there is some sort-of self-striping handspun waiting to become socks).

A Series of Tubes

I am so very close to finishing up my Evenlight. I returned to it Sunday night and managed to finish up the first sleeve last night. Before starting the second, I even wove in all my ends. I'm now well on my way on the second sleeve, and if all goes according to plan, the sweater should be done by this weekend -- a good thing, too, because it's supposed to be rather chilly and I might just want to wear a sweater.

I did end up having to buy a third skein of yarn, and luckily my LYS had one more in stock from the same lot as the original two skeins. For the sleeves, I've been alternating the new skein with what was left of one of the originals after I finished the body. There was only a tiny amount leftover from one of those when I finished the first sleeve, so I should be using up nearly all of the original skeins. While I'm sure I can make good use of what's left of the third skein, I am a little bummed that I had to buy more, especially when you consider that I had more than what the pattern specified to begin with. But I guess it happens, and in this case it all worked out okay.

In other projects, I've nearly finished the first of my pink striped socks, which got most of my attention the last couple of days we were away. I've only been working on them during my lunch break at work, so progress has slowed a bit, but I expect the first one at least to be done shortly.

Usually I don't worry so much about stripes matching, but I'm going to try to match up this pair, especially because the striping sequence worked out so nicely with the heel. I was really hoping that I wouldn't get the odd one or two rows of a different color on the instep, and it worked out better than I hoped. The stripe sequence in this yarn is short enough that I shouldn't have an issue with having enough yarn if I wind off some to get to the same starting point for the second sock; the last time I used this yarn (following my same generic sock recipe), I used less than 350 yards of the 400 yard skein.

I haven't forgotten about my handspun Hitofude; it is waiting patiently until the other sweater is finished. Considering that it's a lightweight sweater, I'm not in any rush to finish it right now. The Gradient-along technically finishes up at the end of June, and I think another three months should be plenty of time to get it done as long as I work on it regularly.

I'm Sensing a Theme

Is it really Thursday already? The week has flown by. We have one more full day of vacation (sob!) and will be heading home on Saturday. Fortunately it seems we have missed the nasty last blast of winter, so we'll be headed home to spring, really and truly.

After the first swatching fail earlier in the week, I spent Tuesday evening ripping out and then reknitting the swatch for my Hitofude Cardigan, this time in the correct stitch pattern. I knit two repeats of the lace in three needle sizes (US 4, 5, and 6, or 3.5, 3.75, and 4.0 mm), then blocked the swatch overnight. I settled on the 6/4.0 mm, and I'm still the tiniest bit off on gauge, but I think that I can work out the difference with some aggressive blocking. I made the smallest of starts last night, which you can see here along with my swatch.

Today we did a lot of driving around -- errands, lunch out, etc. -- before going to see Zootopia (which I highly enjoyed), so I thought it was the perfect opportunity to cast on a new pair of socks. This is yet another self-striping pair in Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce, colorway Bubble Gum:

All that time turned into a bit more than five inches of knitting, so I'm nearly done with the leg of my first sock! Did you happen to notice, by the way, that all my knitting is currently pink? I promise that was not intentional, but it is a funny coincidence.

We're hoping that we get one last pool day in tomorrow (personally, I'm hoping to get through a couple hundred more pages of my 1,000-plus-page book), and then it will be back home and back to the grind. As sad as I will be to have to go back to work, though, I am looking forward to getting home to my other WIP, a sweater that is just a sleeve and a half away from being finished!

Stage 1 Complete

You know this spinning project well. I've been working on it since almost the beginning of the year, and for a time there, it seemed like it would never end. But it finally has. And I'm in love.

I had spun the singles very fine on purpose because I know how Polwarth poofs up when it's washed. I knew that to get yarn that was the correct thickness and to have a chance at enough yardage for the planned project, I needed to err on the side of singles that were a little finer than I'd normally spin them. It turns out my planning worked out perfectly.

I was worried about getting enough yardage, but it all turned out well in the end. The pattern specifies 980 yards for my size; I got a bit more than 1,150. So I should have enough for swatching and the project.

I wound up this giant skein yesterday (boy, was my arm sore after that!), and it -- along with a skein of sock yarn -- are in my suitcase to go to Florida later today. Rainbow and I are headed down for about a week with my parents (please pity the Mister, who has to stay home and work), and I'm looking forward to some good knitting time!

Plying on a Deadline

After more than two months of spinning singles, I finally made it to the plying stage on my Gradient-along Polwarth. Plying takes less time than spinning singles, but it still takes time. I had the day off from work on Friday and spent probably three hours at the wheel in total. I spent about another hour at it yesterday and about half an hour today, and I'm only about halfway done.

You can see that I'm just getting into the more red purple that was the final color on the first braid, so I'm just past the halfway point. I'm going to spend a bit more time plying once I post this, and my hope is that if I can manage a few more hours this week, I'll be able to finish and wash the skein before Rainbow and I head to Florida for a little spring break trip on Sunday (assuming I get enough yardage for the intended project, the yarn will be coming with us).

I'm anxious to get this project done not only because I want to start knitting but because the backlog of fiber coming in is getting to be a bit ridiculous. I still have two shipments of the last round of the FatCatKnits club unspun (with the next round starting up this week), and my Southern Cross Fibre shipments have been arriving every month. February's shipment showed up this past week:

The colorway I received is called Closer to Home, and it's on oatmeal BFL. It smelled nice and sheepy when I pulled it out of the bag. This is really only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my SCF stash, too. Since Rainbow and I did the big stash reorganization several weeks ago, I've filled an entire shelf of the built-in unit in the closet just with SCF fiber. I've really got to get spinning!

Close but No Cigar

Despite my best intentions to spin more this past week, I ended up doing more knitting, so I did not finish spinning my Polwarth singles. But I will be very soon, perhaps as soon as tomorrow evening. I've reached the final color in the gradient and have about an arm's length left of fiber to spin.

If all goes as I hope, I'll begin plying later this week. My goal is to have finished yarn in the next two weeks, as Rainbow and I will be heading to Florida for a little vacation two weeks from today. Assuming I have enough yardage, my plan is to take the yarn with me and start the sweater. Keep your fingers crossed that I do, or else I'm going to have to go back to square one on this plan!

Slow and Steady

The Gradient-along project continues for another week, though now I can say with confidence that the end is truly in sight. I spent a good four or five hours spinning over the course of the last three days, and I can see the progress on my bobbin.

I have finished the darkest purple of this braid (you can still see a little of it peeking through if you look closely) and have moved onto the lighter purple. After this shade is done, all that's left is the light blue. I'm going to do my best to fit in some spinning time during the week, and my fingers are crossed that I'll have all the singles spun by the beginning of March. I'm not even thinking about how long this large bobbin of singles will take to ply -- at least I know it can't possibly be as long as it's taking to spin the singles!

The End of the Affair

I'll admit it -- I was cheating on my spinning project. Yes, I was having an affair with other fiber, even though I was meant to be spinning for the Gradient-along, which I'm hosting. But it's all over now, and the last skein has been plied.

You will recall that I had a braid of Falkland from FatCatKnits that was a Day's End braid -- meaning, presumably, that Ginny used whatever dye she had left at the end of the day to create a one-of-a-kind colorway. My braid was a mix of purples, blues, and neon greens. I divided up the fiber into most light and mostly dark bits, then divided each pile into thirds by weight. You've seen the resulting skein from the light bits, but here is the finished dark skein:

This skein is smaller, at 47 g and roughly 165 yards, but it did come out fairly consistent with the first skein. As with the first one, when the singles ran out on the first bobbin, I wound off from one of the remaining bobbins so I could ply from both ends of the resulting center-pull ball, and when that ran out, I did a bit of chain plying with was was left on the final bobbin. So for this whole spinning project, I think I only had a few inches of singles left when all was said and done. I really like it when I'm able to use up as much as possible, so that made me very happy.

With the two skeins combined, I've got just a smidge less than 425 yards, so this definitely falls into the light fingering category. I'm hoping to find a colorwork project that will use both skeins. If you've got a recommendation, I'm all ears!

Now that my cheating is done, I've returned to my Bee Mice Elf Polwarth, and after giving it a few hours of attention this afternoon, I'm getting very close to finishing up the first braid (the first half) of the fiber. Here's what it looked like when I sat down to start spinning this afternoon; I was just starting the transition from the pink over to the purple.

I'm now solidly into the dark purple, and if I can get in a bit more time tomorrow (when I luckily have another day off with Rainbow), I should be able to at least start the transition to the second braid. I'll be going from dark purple to dark purple, but the purple in this braid is more of a red purple whereas the purple in the second braid is more of a blue purple, so I'm planning to fluff out the ends and blend them together with the hope of being able to draft a bit of each color for a while to smooth the transition.

While I'm not giving myself a hard deadline for finishing the yarn, it would be really wonderful if I could finish the singles, at least, by the end of the month and then ply before the middle of March. We just made plans to go away for a week in late March when Rainbow is on spring break, and it would be lovely if I could take the finished yarn with me to start the knitting portion of the project. In any case, I am self-imposing a spinning restriction: I am not allowed to spin anything else until this project is done. I'm hoping the prospect of spinning something else will be good enough motivation to hold me to that.

Spinning Variety

I have been dutifully spinning away on my Gradient-along project, though spinning fine singles means that even after hours at the wheel, it looks like little progress has been made. Still, I'm moving forward. I'm now well into the pink section of this braid, and purple (the final color in this braid) isn't far off.

It's not nearly so electric as it looks; gloom necessitates a flash.

This is such a big project that I decided I needed a little diversion. I've had a braid sitting next to my wheel for several months now -- I'd originally hoped to spin it during last year's Tour de Fleece, but I never got to it -- and I decided now was finally the time to spin it. This was a day's end braid of Falkland from FatCatKnits (meaning it used up the dye at the end of a day's dyeing) called Xavier. Here's what it looked like to start (it's the braid on the far right):

I decided to spin this a little differently, so I split the fiber up into lights (greens and blues) and darks (dark purples). Then I split each pile of fiber into thirds:

The idea is to spin a three-ply yarn of each and then use the two skeins in some sort of stranded colorwork project. I started with the lights, as that's the bigger portion of the fiber, and I got the first third spun up today (trust me it looks much better with real light):

It didn't take too long to spin, so this will be a nice break in between spinning sessions on the other project. And these bright greens and blues are so welcome on a gloomy winter day!

Splendour in the Wool

This skein was finished last weekend, but the lack of daylight in general at this time of year and the gloomy morning weather we've had this past week have made it extremely difficult to get a decent photo of anything, so I had to wait until yesterday to get a photo that would do it justice. But here it is, finally:

Southern Cross Fibre Corriedale in Splendour

I had split the top several times vertically and then spun the strips end to end. Once all the singles were on a bobbin, I chain plied them (after they rested a good two weeks while we were on vacation). The finished yarn is fingering weight and approximately 385 yards, which should be enough for a pair of socks for me.

I will say that this yarn is maybe a tad underplied for my taste (I tend to like a lot of plying twist in my sock yarns), but the skein is balanced and that means less fighting with the yarn when I do eventually knit it up.

Meanwhile, I'm in the middle of what will likely be a long-term spinning project. This is my Polwarth gradient for the Gradient-along. I've just started seeing a bit of the second color show up on the bobbin.

I haven't taken a close look at the fiber that is left of this first braid, but I'm guessing I'm probably in the neighborhood of a fourth of the way through it. I have 8 oz. total to spin, and given how fine I'm spinning the singles, that's not going to be an easy task, so expect to see bobbin shots of this project for the foreseeable future.

First New Yarn

I really missed spinning while we were away, so as soon as the necessary things (unpacking, cleaning, etc.) were done around the house after we got back yesterday afternoon, I sat down at my miniSpinner to ply of the bobbin of singles I finished just before we went away. I must have been really excited about spinning, because I managed to ply everything by the time I was ready to go to bed. That might seem like a lot of spinning, but using my miniSpinner with the WooLee Winder meant that it was actually less than about three hours' worth.

The finished skein is currently soaking in the bathtub, but here's what it looked like freshly plied (though bear in mind that the colors are a bit muted because it's a very dreary day here and the light was not so great when I took the photos):

On the bobbin

Skeined on the niddy noddy

This yarn is Corriedale from Southern Cross Fibre in a colorway called Splendour. I believe this was one of the October club colorways, and it's certainly very autumnal. I spun it into one of my "pseudo-self-striping" sock yarns, and unless it shrinks a ton in the wash (which I very much doubt), it should be plenty for a pair of socks.

Meanwhile, while we were away, two more club shipments arrived. First was the final installment of the FatCatKnits Famous Couples for this round, in Rhett and Scarlett (I'll bet you can tell which is which):

I ordered this round in BFL, and I'm thinking that I will do a traditional three ply with each color separately and then use the two resulting skeins for something striped or with stranded colorwork.

Also, in a minor fiber miracle, my SCF December shipment actually showed up in December! I can't be sure exactly when, but it was here yesterday before the mail came, so it had to have arrived by New Year's Eve at the very latest.

This should be a very interesting bit of fiber to spin: It's 80% merino and 20% rose fiber. It's soft and silky, and I think it should have good drape. The colorway David chose for me for this shipment is called Primordial.

Before I can tackle these two new arrivals, though, I have some fiber to spin for the Gradient-along I'm hosting in the Ravelry Spinning Knitters group. The idea is to spin a gradient yarn and then knit/crochet/weave it into a project. I'm going to be spinning some Bee Mice Elf Polwarth that I bought quite a while back.

I have a total of 8 oz., and I'll be joining them at the purples. My hope is that I'll have enough to knit a Hitofude Cardigan when I'm done.