Sweater Project 2012: Complete!

It is done! Just in time for 80 degree weather, too. ;-)

Pattern: I Heart Aran by Tanis Lavallee
Yarn: my handspun three-ply heavy worsted weight Romney from fleece purchased at MDSW 2011
Needles: US 6 (4.0 mm) and US 7 (4.5 mm) Knit Picks Options
Started/Completed: February 23/April 26
Mods: bound off all stitches and seamed rather than grafting at underarms and shoulders, added an additional inch of length to body

I am thrilled with how this turned out. The start-to-finish time span is not quite representative of how long it took to knit, because I was working on other projects at the same time and thus was putting it down and picking it up during that period. The front, with all the cabled details, probably took the longest of all the parts, as you would expect, but even that didn't take more than probably a couple of weeks' worth of knitting sessions all told.

The one minor modification I made to the pattern was to bind off underarm and shoulder stitches and then seam them; the pattern called for putting these stitches on holders and then grafting them at the end. I love to graft, but I felt that because this sweater was so heavy (handspun is generally a lot denser than commercial yarn), the added stability of sewn seams, especially at the shoulders, would help this sweater to keep its shape and wear better over the long run.

One shiny button purchased at my LYS!

I found this pattern to be generally well written, and when I did run into one area of difficulty, I was able to PM the designer and get great help. (For the curious, the difficulty came in the form of the word "repeat." When I see repeat, I always assume that you do something once and then repeat -- do it again -- x number of times. In this case, "repeat" was used to mean do a direction x number of times total.) Tanis double checked the numbers on the sleeve shaping for me and even sent me the pattern again just in case I had downloaded before an update had happened. She even acknowledged that the way the directions were worded was a little confusing. Turns out, the numbers were correct and it was just my interpretation of the directions that was at fault. The experience was great, though, in that I got an excellent example of what customer service and good pattern support should be.

One of the things I was most worried about was having enough yarn. I selected this pattern first and foremost because I loved it but also because all the cabling was only on the front -- as you can see, the back and sleeves are in stockinette. Of course, I still worried that I wouldn't have enough, especially as I only had about 150 yards more than the yardage specified in the pattern. As it turns out, I shouldn't have worried. I have two skeins completely untouched, one of them with fairly high yardage, and according to my calculations, that means I used approximately 925 yards for my sweater, including a swatch and these leftovers (with iPod for scale):

All in all, I can say with certainty that this year's Sweater Project was a huge success! The sweater fits really well and is not nearly as scratchy as last year's sweater, meaning I will wear it often when the weather is amenable. I still have a fair amount of fiber leftover and am thinking of spinning up matching yarn to make Rainbow a coordinating sweater for next winter. Plus, even though I didn't set a specific time frame for completing the sweater, I happened to finish this a week before Maryland Sheep and Wool -- which means I feel completely okay with bringing home another fleece!

Positive Outlook

Things are looking good on the sweater front, and barring any unforeseen emergencies or complications, I should be able to finish it this week. I seamed the shoulders and picked up for the collar on Sunday evening and then got through the short row portion last night. Tonight or tomorrow I'm hoping to finish the collar off, and then all that will remain is seaming, which should be able to be accomplished in an evening.

I think I am going to cheat and wait to block until after I've seamed; usually I block the pieces first to make seaming easier, but it'll be more complicated with this sweater because the front and back are already attached, so I think I'll just suck it up and deal with some curling edges. I would normally block the whole thing again anyhow, so I'm only saving a little bit of time and effort by skipping that one step.

I'm really amazed by how well my yarn supply has held out given that I only had a little more in the way of yardage than the pattern specified. Clearly the yarn requirements were a bit inflated, which I really like -- always better to have too much yarn than not enough. Once the sweater is done, it looks like I'll only have used about five of my seven skeins.

It seems rather apropos that I will finish the sweater this week given that it's been unseasonably cool -- cold, even. We were under a winter weather advisory yesterday and were supposed to get snow, although it seems to have skipped the city (we just got rain) and landed mainly in the higher elevations. In any case, I may not need the sweater once it's done, but it'll certainly be cool enough that I won't be sweltering when it comes time to take a modeled shot of it!

Inching Along

I am getting closer and closer to a finished handspun sweater. I completed the front over the weekend and cast on for the sleeves on Sunday (I'm doing both at once in the interest of both getting them finished faster and having two sleeves that match). Thanks to knit night with the Hurricane Knitters last night and staying up to watch the end of the Pens game, I now have sleeves that need just five more inches on them before the sleeve cap shaping starts.

I had run into a bit of trouble with the pattern instructions for the increases on the sleeves that had me scratching my head for a day or so, but I PMed the designer on Ravelry and she was super helpful. Seems it was the term "repeat" that was the cause for confusion for me -- a general theme when it comes to my not understanding something in a pattern! Fortunately, thanks to some great customer service/pattern support, I had it figured out so fast that there was no delay in my knitting time.

It may be a bit unrealistic, but I'm hoping to have this thing wrapped up by the end of the month. I really don't have that much left to do -- I have to finish the sleeves, seam the sweater, and knit the shawl collar. Provided I can put in some serious knitting time this weekend, it just might be doable.

Speaking of this weekend, my trunk show opens at my LYS tomorrow. If you're local, I hope you'll stop by sometime in the next couple of weeks to see it. All of the designs you've seen on the blog already will be featured, but there are also a couple of items in the show that you haven't seen yet that I'm prepping for a fall release.

An End in Sight

Thanks to those of you who chimed in on the decision of what to do with the edging on my Stripe Study Shawl. I have decided to knit to 4 inches or as much as I can by Friday night, whichever comes first, so that I can weave in the ends and block it in time to show it off at my LYS on Saturday for their annual Show Us Your Shawl event. As of last night, I had 3 inches done, so I think that's a reasonable expectation. It looks like I will use up most of the yarn, too, so I won't have to worry about what to do with a lot of leftovers.

In the meantime, look! I finished a blanket!

This is my Gothic Leaves Baby Blanket, knit exactly as specified in the pattern with Cascade 220 Superwash in a cheerful lime green color. If you recall, I gave away the original earlier this year as a baby gift, so I needed to whip up another for my trunk show at my LYS later this month. This was a very fast knit (started one weekend and finished the next) and fairly mindless except when I apparently stopped paying attention and forgot yarnovers only to put them in the wrong places, resulting in a couple instances of required tinking. Despite the amount of time I've spent with this pattern, I still enjoyed it, and I especially love how easy it was to block -- I took advantage of the yarn's tendency to stretch and just smoothed it out on my drying racks. While this is going into the sample pile for now, it'll be good to have on hand should I need a baby gift in a hurry.

I've also given my I Heart Aran sweater a bit of attention this week; one front is now complete and the other side is partially done. I'm still amazed by how well my yarn supply is holding out -- I haven't even gone through three skeins yet! Assuming the shawl is off the needles by tomorrow night, the sweater will get my full attention this weekend.

More Cables

In spite of the fact that is most definitely summery outside (I've been wearing capris and sandals to work for two days!), I am still chugging right along on my handspun sweater. I know there's probably a snowball's chance in hell that I'll actually be able to wear it when it's done (at least, not for anything longer than the photo shoot needed to prove it's actually done), but I'm not the sort of person who usually leaves projects unfinished*.  So I will finish this sweater this spring. I will admire it and then pack it away until the weather is appropriate for it.

Last night at Hurricane Knitting, I got through another repeat of the cable chart on the front, which was what I had calculated I needed to do for it to be the proper length to start the underarm shaping. I measured before we left and I was about half an inch short of where I needed to be, but holding it up against the back this morning, it looks like I might just be there:



I will do another comparison to be sure tonight, but things are looking promising. The front should go much faster from here on out, as the neck shaping starts at the same time as the underarm shaping (or very shortly after it) and I'll be working on the front sections separately. Then it's just the arms, which I'm planning to do at the same time, and the shawl collar. And, of course, there's the making up, but that shouldn't take me more than a solid evening of work. I'm fairly confident that this sweater will be done before it's time to head to Maryland Sheep and Wool -- which means I will give myself permission to buy another fleece!


* That is, except for my Noro Lady Eleanor stole; it's languished for a good 2+ years. But I have a good excuse for that -- I did start it just before Rainbow was born, so I was a bit distracted for several months. I swear I'll get around to finishing it one of these days!

Sweater Project 2012: Stage Two

As of this week, the spinning portion of my fleece-to-sweater project is compete. I finished plying up the last skein (made of all the leftover bits of singles from the previous skeins) on Monday night and finished washing the last few skeins by midweek. Once everything was dry, I was able to measure the last few skeins and total up my yardage.

So here are the final stats and all the relevant info: This started as a Romney fleece purchased at Maryland Sheep and Wool last year. I handed it off to Ozark Carding Mill shortly after I bought it, where it was washed and carded into roving for me. I spun up the singles 2 ounces at a time, using a semi-worsted method, on my miniSpinner, letting each batch rest at least overnight before winding it onto my ball winder and then transferring it to a TP tube for storage. Once all the singles were spun, I mixed them up for plying for the sake of consistency and plied six full skeins, all between about 170 yards and 190 yards. Finally, I plied up all but a tiny amount of the leftover singles into the final skein. When all was said and done, I ended up with approximately 1,215 yards of three-ply heavy worsted weight yarn -- a bit less than I was hoping for, but still a respectable number, I think.

The last step in this project is to knit a sweater with this yarn. Originally, I had hoped to have enough to knit a Fireside Sweater, but I'm a good deal short on the yardage I'd need to make my size (and in the end I think it's probably going to be a better idea to use commercial yarn for that one, as a handspun version would likely end up weighing three or four pounds). My second choice was I Heart Aran, for which I am very close in yardage but think I have enough wiggle room should I get close. I am not going to make myself crazy trying to finish this in time to wear it this winter, so I'll stick to my original plan of having a finished handspun sweater done by the end of 2012.

Now that this spinning project is done, I'm back to spinning colored fiber again, which is a great change. There's still roughly a pound and a half of fleece left, though, so it'll be back on the wheel one of these days. I'm thinking that because it's roving, I can use it to practice my long draw and spin up some light, lofty yarns, perhaps to use in combination with other handspun. That, though, is a subject for another day. For now, I'm just admiring the lovely pile of cream-colored skeins sitting next to my wheel and thinking about how cozy I'll be next fall and winter in the sweater they will become.

Ta-da: Yarn!

Plying of my sweater singles has commenced (and has been going very quickly!). Here are the first two skeins:

While the yardage is a tad disappointing, I'm very pleased with the quality of yarn. I used a worsted method with a woolen preparation (carded roving) for a very soft, fluffy yarn that I'm hoping will still be fairly durable.

As far as plying goes, I am following the same plan as last year. I had 18 batches of singles, so I am mixing them up to be as consistent as possible -- number 1 is being plied with number 7 and number 13, 2 with 8 and 14, etc. When one "bobbin" runs out, I've been breaking the singles that remain and tossing the leftovers into a bag. When I finish the six full skeins, I'll pull out the leftovers and ply them all up into a seventh skein. I've plied five so far (the third is nearly dry, the fourth is hanging to dry, and the fifth is waiting on the niddy noddy), so I have just the last full skein to ply up tonight and will do the leftovers tomorrow. Then it will be time to count yardage and decide what sweater to knit -- the really challenging part of this whole project!

Thirty-four

I do have a sweater spinning update this week, and it's a big one. As of this afternoon, I've finished 34 ounces worth of singles.

The last two ounces are in progress on the wheel and should be completely spun by tomorrow night at the latest. Then it's time to ply! In all, I'll have six full skeins of three ply and probably a seventh composed of the leftovers that remain from each of the full skeins. I'm excited to see how much yardage I can get, and I'm also very interested to see how long (or not!) it'll take me to ply on the miniSpinner. Considering I've been able to spin 2 oz. of singles in about an hour and a half, I may be able to ply two skeins a night!

Spinning Motivation

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!

On Pace

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!

Romney 2012

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!