On Design, Part III

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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!