Tag Archives: handspun

September 29, 2018 · 9:41 AM

End of September

Eh, I don’t want to play catch-up, nor look at the horrid f-book to reconfigure publish settings, my files are all still a mess between machines, and I’m sunk in sick of the goings on of today…

But I’m happily knitting up that mass of camelid into a truly giant blanket or two smaller ones…

I’m going to have to make that decision fairly soon – my hesitation for making it giant is that it is very sheddy, somewhat pokey (both from vm and guard hairs), and will be a bitch to wash, so I don’t really want it on the bed – but – it could still be a throw/deck blanket, just folded over… but it will still be a bitch to eventually wash. But I didn’t keep track of which skeins I’ve used, so if I do a second, I run the risk that it might come out a little smaller than I’d like. It’s mostly a pleasure to knit though – despite the occasional pokiness and seed splinter, it’s buttery soft and fun to watch the stripes form.

I’ve had a string of needle failures – and even more hijinx with size 8s – my two once trusty sets of interchangeables are finally showing their wear, so I’m transitioning over to another brand with hopefully stronger cords, but in the meantime I’ve got a motley crew of  works in progress on various sticks and strings, and a pileup on the 8s. And a few things are being packed up for the pond. This cotton blanket just came off the needles, but I haven’t frogged it yet – I still want to make a cotton blanket, and I’d still like a thin one, but that want and like don’t go together – I think I want to start it again with the yarns doubled and on size 8s or 9s to make it speedier, but not now.

I want to finish living with this beast of a fleece – I’ve nearly finished picking the best of it, the rest of it requires more patience than I’ve got now. What I don’t finish before the cold weather hits might just end up in the compost pile – it’s mostly what should have been skirted off anyway, and will probably only amount to less than a couple of ounces. My original plan for the yarn was to knit a bulky, dense coat, but there will probably be enough for that and a giant blanket, or two… But I still need to card at least some of it, so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to finish spinning it by the end of winter. I know I won’t be able to finish it, but at least the worst/messiest part will be over.

The NJ wool festival happened and I’m just a few ounces richer in dyed wool, and one brand-new skein of indie dyed yarn that will pair well with another I’ve had in my stash for ages. I’ll probably do a (chemically) colorful quick-ish spin before starting on the beast.

Sewing basically hasn’t been happening at all, and that is making me slightly nuts – perhaps when the garden goes to sleep I’ll have more time…

Perhaps, maybe, one day, eventually, later on…………..?

Some of that shit just isn’t happening.

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July 30, 2018 · 9:27 AM

Weeding and wheeling

Oh, it’s past mid-summer, or is this mid-summer now…?

My old computer finally shat the bed, the new one took nearly a month to arrive, I’m still struggling with transferring files and software and the like, we were on vacation, the garden and yard are nuts, I finally finished a few little house things, and less screen time has been good.

Those great big balls of llama (maybe alpaca?) I flashed last fall are now yarn.

I was aiming for a rustic spin, intentionally a bit thick and thin, but overall bulky weight – I was aware that I began spinning thinner and thinner, and the more aware that I was about doing it, the more I thought I was intentionally bulking back up…

But in the end, the last few skeins were more sport to worsted…

But it doesn’t matter – I plan to knit a throw blanket and will alternate the skeins to even out the weights a bit. There’s a bit under 2,000 yards and I had planned to be able to knit on US 11 or so needles, but my “bulky” spins often work best on 9s, so we’ll see – hopefully it’s enough yarn to make something the length of toes to tits and wide enough to tuck the sides underneath for encapsulation. I love the warmth and squishiness of garter stitch like this blanket (that is slightly too narrow at times and I flirt with the idea of adding another stripe lengthwise, but instead I’ll just knit a whole new blanket or more…) but I’ll get more size out of stockinette, so I’m pretty sure I’ll just do up something ultra easy and in the round like this baby blanket again. Though I’m still tempted to add in some waves or do a modular block thing, but the clock is ticking, and I’ll need to knit this outside because it’s full of veg still – and the blanket itself will be for sunny winter day porch lounging… at least that’s the plan.

It’s been hot as balls and humid as a piehole, so my spinning has ceased for the moment – I’m down to a reasonable amount of fiber too (except for that shorn-too-short alpaca) so I want to be a bit more organized for my next spins – I’ve already grouped a few things together, but I’d like to revisit what I thought would be sweater vs. scarf/shawl amounts since I don’t seem to be finishing a single sweater…

My knitting mojo has just been off – part of that is from garden weary and damaged hands and the joint/tendon pain and swelling I seem to get every time it’s hot and humid now, and part is I want to finish some things before moving on, but I just need to put in a lot more hours of knitting and several thousands stitches to finish…

But part of that is I really just want to knit some socks – so I started another pair. It’s my last ball of my preferred yarn – everything else in the stash is too thin, so I’ll knit that stuff up doubled or maybe one day suck it up and knit it on US 0s, and I really don’t need socks (maybe they’ll end up being a gift?) but fuck it, if that’s what I want to knit to keep my fingers happy, so be it.

(Incidentally I got an email that this yarn was on sale again, but by the time I went to get it, it was all sold out, so I still haven’t bought any yarn for I don’t know how long…?) Well, that isn’t quite true, I’ve thrifted a little bit lately, but that doesn’t count.

The garden is a demanding, but tasty bitch. I need to jot up notes for next year, but the nutshell is Squash Vine Borer is hitting now, but we’ve already had a decent crop of zukes – I’m going to attempt some surgery and bury the vines today, but frankly, I’ve had my fill of the stuff for the year, though N hasn’t. The high humidity and frequent splashy rains brought in the blights the last week or so, but we’ve gotten about 50 pounds of tomatoes so far, and there’s another round ready by week’s end, so I hope I can keep things going, but at the least, we’ve got a decent amount to finish putting up. Three batches of jalapeno salsa and one of crushed toms was canned yesterday. The jalapeno plants were all started from seed, looked like utter shit for several weeks after I put them out and they were devoured by slugs? but then perhaps they were all the stronger for it and grew into these gorgeous, lusty plants. And the blueberries are coming in very well (the blackberries are very sour though, and the gooseberry was less productive this year).

And the closets are all finally done – hot, cramped, messy work I put off for a bit – all needed to be primed and primed and primed, caulked, trimmed out, some needed some shelves, and all needed many coats of paint.

Large projects that need to eventually be addressed are: installing central air, taking down trees, fixing/removing retaining wall, fencing, removing and re-installing attic insulation, some tweaks to the well equipment/set-up, and some other things I’m blanking on at the moment…

Small projects include: repair and painting around doors, scrubbing the siding; patching (painting?) some stucco, replacing some interior doors (maybe, if we can find vintage matches), improving the area underneath the deck, replacing the storm doors, of course more and more landscaping, and more things I’m blanking on…

And a medium project – sometimes large and overwhelming, sometimes a small, chip away at deal, is continuing to purge my shit. I have yet to come to any conclusions or at least stalemates on my art/crafting/collecting issues, but I’m slowing letting go of things, as well as still selling some of my vintage shit. I’ve a collection of old photos I might start to cull for cash, but it’s the only collection that fits neatly inside of a few small boxes, so it doesn’t much count…

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April 9, 2018 · 4:08 PM

A poncho in a weekend, no week, no week and a half…

I was itching to finish something (something knitted something), but my unfinished somethings all need a good amount of time yet, and the effects of the Rosa’s Caponcho kool-aid I drank last fall (and decided to rip) hadn’t worn off yet.

The long Easter weekend had no holiday and associated obligations for me, and the weather’s been shitty, so I cast on the poncho the Thursday night before thinking I might just be able to finish it by the end of the weekend. And I could have if I knit for more hours than just the evenings and one afternoon for a bit, but instead, I sort of finished it in a week. Not finished, exactly – started the bind-off the following Thursday and then found it was too stretchy, and I would have liked another row in garter, and I was going to run out of yarn for the bind-off anyway, and I should have gone down to smaller needles for the garter portion, then bigger needles for the bind-off but not too stretchy of a bind-off, the regular kind whose name I don’t know and that can be too tight but sometimes you need a little less stretch, and I’m really not sure if the thing is long enough as it is because I never stopped to take off the needles or on to another set to try it on and I didn’t love that the gauge was so loose, at least in partsssss……….

So I almost finished it in a week, then unknit the cast-off I began on Thursday, ignored it on Friday, tried it on on Saturday, deemed it a very good cozy thing, finished un-knitting it – took it up another row or two (I didn’t keep track, damn me) so I’d have another row of garter, and started a few stitches of garter to remind myself it should be smooth sailing from here on out and maybe I could finish by the end of the weekend?

But that was Saturday night.

But it was finished (though still needs to be blocked) courtesy of the plumber opening up some knitting time on Monday.

As a practical wearable woolly thing, it is perfect – cozy as all get-out – perfect for shoulder seasons, perfect for sitting around indoors and out.

But again I’ve made something that looks like a souvenir from a 1990s gap year in Central/South America. Not that that is a bad thing by any means, it just doesn’t look handmade by me, or a not-quite-handmade where did you buy that because a lot of commercial knits have a handmade aesthetic now? On the one hand it is utterly boring stripes, easy mindless chunks dark to light, or light to dark if you’re flat on your back, and I should have done something more creative, inventive, unique, and…. hip? It is utterly not hip. But I don’t like hip. But I’m feeling a bit frumpy. But is it frumpy? But I don’t care.

And there’s always the option to wear it sideways.

I like options.

The sheep geek (not geeking sheep) in me likes that this is all Jacob wool, and I’d like to think that most of it came off of one sheep, but of course, it didn’t. The bulk of it was roving from Jenny Jump farm and it is gorgeous – soft but structured – the rest was an ounce or two of not very nice stuff (more about the spin here). And oddly, my spinning varied much more than I’d thought between the colors. My favorites where the darkest and second darkest, and by far they were the best spins. The white sucks – I hadn’t gotten chain plying down by then yet and it is overspun. The spinning on second lightest is much better, but for whatever reason, this was much thinner than all of the other colors… no specific reason for that…?

Also there was more white than dark, but the dark part is vast – and that’s obvious because the rows were short for most of it, but I still thought the white would have a tiny bit more than it did, but not an issue, just a mild huh…

So the details:

Quad-colored Jacob roving, separated by color, chain plied to a bulkyish weight, roughly 528 yards.

Dark ~166 yards, medium dark ~82 yards, medium light ~110 yards, light ~170 yards.

Stretchy cast on 70 (might have miscounted and it was 69) stitches

4 plain knitting rows on US 10 needles, then 3 repeats of the 2 row pattern, 2 repeats on US 10.5, 7 repeats on US 11, then roughly 30 repeats on US 13 – this is the part I lost track of since I ripped back a bit, then three ribs of garter on US 11 needles, bind-off in traditional one over the other way with a US 13 in my right hand.

Then done.

I’ll bother blocking it when it needs its first wash – I’m slightly concerned about it stretching out since the gauge is a bit too loose, but a couple more inches is fine – more than that and I might have to felt slightly or take it up a few rows – or knit another…?

I might just have to knit another anyway…

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March 27, 2018 · 8:36 AM

Lion or lamb wham…?

We’ve had four nor’easters in three weeks.

At first it was gearing up to be an early spring – the blackbirds were hanging out, the buds filling out, and I wasn’t quite ready, but at the same time itching to get out.

And then foot after foot of white stuff – the heavy kind, not the fluffy kind, and now I’m fearing our Magnolia blossoms have been damaged again – we had exactly one last year – one bloom on a giant old tree…

But then again, we’re a little too north for Magnolias anyway…

I started a linen stitch scarf for N out of yarn from one of his old sweaters.

Then I realized I couldn’t finish it before the season was out, so there is no hurry…

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Late winter afternoon. #shadows #horse

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Then I got out a very long-suffering sweater that has a serious game of yarn chicken going on, and less than ideal options for the bottom hem. After hemming and hawing about the hem, I’ve set off for sleevetown to knit down the yarn. If there is any remaining, I’ll unknit the current hem and re-knit it in the way I’m thinking will drive me crazy the least.

I forgot to note when I finished this spin – I’d meant to keep track since I’d like to know how long it takes me to spin for a sweater when just spinning for 30-45 minutes or so here and there, but at least around 3-4 days a week. I think I finished at the end of February, but February is short – maybe early March? Either way, it took around/a little less than, two months…?

Not unreasonable – a good pace actually since I don’t need to make yarn faster than I can knit it. But it’s only 1,200 yards, so about the minimum I’d need for the bigger/longer things I like to wear these days. I haven’t done any swatching yet, but I was aiming for a worsted/aran generally (it’s got an intentional thick and thin thing going on) and I’m thinking it might be slightly less, so I’ll start with a US 7 needle first…

Debating about a very basic pullover or a cardigan (really need cardigans)…if it is a cardigan, I’ll probably need to spin more or more likely use commercial yarn for the button bands and such.

(And perhaps it’s worth a mention that the yarn almost exactly matches a felted bag I made probably around 10… 10! years ago but have yet to finish. And should I admit that part of that is from bedbug fear? I’d made it as an overnight/light traveling bag but then imagined that the felt would grab and hold thousands of bedbug eggs from overhead compartments and hotel surfaces… That, and it is a bit heavy too, so it defeats the purpose of traveling light…)

The garden is almost ready – I started writing this last Wednesday thinking the snow would melt by the weekend, and it didn’t, but it has today, but it’s still fairly cold and I’ve got a little cold.

But the storms have also caused other delays – the farm store I get bagged compost to supplement ours has had their scheduled dirt delivery overdue for a month…

But I’ve got babies growing in the basement (let’s hope I didn’t start them too soon) that should be ready to be outside by the time everything else is…

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March 7, 2018 · 10:23 AM

Not mittens for kittens

I finally knit a pair of mittens for myself.

The pattern is The World’s Simplest Mittens and they are, but perhaps not yet a go-to, never-fail, can knit it in my sleep pattern for me.

I spun the yarn last summer from fibery odds and ends acquired mostly from the NJ wool fest – some of it was an ounce or so pity purchase, much of it came from $1 or so an ounce grab bags containing matted bits of roving, second cuts, and all around mystery fiber both happy and nasty – it’s likely about 60% alpaca and 40% sheep – the most common breeds around here are Romney and Jacob.

Something went wrong in my weights and measures department because I thought I had over 8 ounces of fiber, but ended up with around 160 yards of yarn – granted, it’s a 3-ply and I wanted a thick, denser yarn – and I got that, but not too dense that it was painful to knit – and apparently I’m too lazy or forgetful to weigh my mittens, so we’ll just say that these took much or many beast/s. And the yarn was mostly fun to spin – just when I was annoyed with some rough and sticky or filthy stuff, I hit some angelic alpaca – and it transformed into a plump beaut after its first bath.

I spun the yarn for mittens or slippers and decided on mittens since I’d yet to make some for myself, and commercially made “warm” mittens often aren’t – or they’re too expensive and poor-fitting for me.

I cast-on for an adult medium (fearing that it might be too small) in worsted because I usually wear men’s gloves or largest women’s (I did a provisional CO so I could later pick up and knit the cuffs down in case my yarn ran short) and I wanted them to be dense – the yarn was more of a bulky weight.

And they were way too big. Part of that was a brain fart on my part – I was doing the thumb gusset as a Kf&b since the fuzzy yarn wouldn’t show the less neat increase as much, but I forgot that makes an extra stitch between the markers, so I ripped back and did a M1R and M1L like I should have in the first place, thinking the too-bigness was mostly due to the too-much-thumbness.

But ass that I can be, I kept knitting when I could tell that they were still too big. I justified this with the intention to line them with old cashmere sweater scraps and/or felt them a bit. But… the fit seemed slightly short. I started the the decreases after I’d cleared my little finger like I do with my little toe when making socks (and interestingly both are a little over 1 1/4 inches in difference) but this mitten decrease is faster than the toe one I use, so I added a knit every other row once I was a few rows in. Either the whole thing should be knit every other row, or I should wait until the cuticle of the next finger from the end to decrease.

My hand isn’t in the right place and my fingers look more aligned than they are, but I’ve got at least an inch or more of width I don’t need – if I knit them again, I’d take off at least 4 stitches. The other issue I’ve always got with mitts and now mittens, is the that palms are never long enough, so I automatically always add at least 4 or 5 rows, maybe at least an inch or so before starting the thumb gusset.

Then there’s the issue of the pointy tops. I don’t like perfectly rounded mitten tops because my middle finger does poke up (in its resting state, not just when gesturing), and I don’t love the sharply-pointed tops you see on some colorwork mittens – so by adding a few knit rows my tops are more of a relaxed point, but if I cup my hands, I still get a pointy nubbin.

That looks like a rooster beak.

And I don’t want to mix my wool and poultry – I’m a little grossed out by the thumb gusset that resembles a chicken leg even though I’m sure it’s a more practical one – and really this might be the pattern I should try next…

But back to my current mitten bitchin’ – this combo of pointy top and side thumbs (not left or right specific) does not work. I knew this going into it – I’ve made several fingerless mitts and the side thumb is fine for a plain top. But one pair I made has a singular design element that twists in when the thumb tucks toward the palm – and the decrease lines of the top twist in toward the palm. So to correct this, either the thumb needs to be left and right specific and needs to be in more, or the pointy decrease needs to happen in more, or the top should have more spaced out decreases so it can spin a bit (though I don’t like the ones that align and end up a bit pinwheeled)…

But whatever, I knew the risks but I wanted mittens quick.

So I’m a little concerned about loosing length if I felted them, and they aren’t as itchy and in immediate need of a lining as I thought they might be, and figured I needed to test drive them first to find out how water and wind tight they were on their own and maybe I needed to do nothing and I had arctic-ready hand protection and I just needed to wait for next winter (or clean out the freezer) to test them out.

Then we had a nor’easter with not-too-much precipitation but way too much wind, and our power was knocked out for 4 days – a bone-chilling, smelly (no water either), very long four days. And the sun came out and it was in the 40s in the day and I still couldn’t get warm – even the dog wanted under the blankets. So the mittens got their test – and failed – the wind still comes through a bit and they are stretching out a little too, so rather than re-knit them, a lining and a little bit of felting should do the trick – or at least improve them enough.

And wearing them made me think of street festivals in the 1990s with Central and South American flute players and hand-knit goods and crystals and shit and I had a very strong suspicion that perhaps I already once owned some hand-knit rustic alpaca mittens…

But I think I was thinking of these – that have seemed to have gone AWOL…

And in the end, I don’t think I need a solid-go-to vanilla mitten pattern like I have with socks – I don’t really need or want another pair of knitted mittens soon (have thoughts of sewing a pair anyway) though perhaps I do need one for fingerless mitts since I wear those very frequently and always have to scramble around a bit to determine stitch counts and whatnot.

For now though, I’m just hoping we’ll have power while another storm is upon us…

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July 22, 2017 · 9:50 AM

Flaming balls of molten lava, ketchup, mustard, blood, candy corn, nasturtiums, atomic fire filled traffic cone roadkill smeared on asphalt in Mordor at sunset superhero sontag

I can’t say I’ve fallen in love with my latest (or any) handknit until it has proven itself wearable with a normal wrapping and unwrapping, pulling tighter or looser, not dipping itself into toilet waters, not catching in turnstiles, and fitting in or out of a coat test drive, but the current heatwave is preventing anything beyond kicking the tires.

I’m still ambivalent and slightly indifferent about it for several reasons, but it was a wild success in others, but first, a recap –

I bought the roving last September – I was (am I still?) on a kick to buy colors outside of my comfort zone – and by that I mostly mean colors that I don’t typically wear because they make me look like shit, but I don’t care how I look to a degree, so I can like and wear whatever color I want to dammit, but I do happen to prefer earthier tones in general…

And it also reminded me of nasturtiums which I love (and I ran out of room to plant this year…).

I got two braids (8oz total) from Fuzzy Frog Fibers because they are very affordable, she does fun and interesting colors, and I like the Dorset wool – springy and strong soft and 4oz doesn’t cut it for me for anything other than a hat, and yes, I can combine them with other things but I’ve already got several combo spins waiting in the wings (including another braid of the same only in my comfort colors from the year before).

I started spinning it a month or so later – I waffled a minute about how to, but I’ve been struggling with making a not-too-overspun single and figured I needed more practice. The Dorset is very forgiving on that front too – didn’t break in the skinny sections and not too sticky to pull out a bit more at the last minute on a big clump.

I also waffled a minute on leaving it as is and spinning each braid separately to have double the stripes/color changes, or combining both for one big gradient – not necessary a skill to practice, but something I hadn’t done before – so I went with that. And the spinning was done by the end of the year.

I sat on it for a bit, thinking about what to make of it – it was going to be a neck thing or a body thing or a poncho-y thing… I felt it needed to be an empowering sort of thing to power through the terrible election and dark days, and almost made this sweater with the molten yarn on the back flappy cape thing, but my gauge was off, the thick and thin yarn isn’t hard enough wearing for clothes, and I haven’t finished something that needs to fit in years, and I wanted to finish it by year’s end.

So easy garter was the answer – and a top-down triangle shawl – a shape which I’m also ambivalent about but thought it was because I hadn’t made one big enough yet. And I cast-on for basically this shawl (I used size 7 needles and about 1.000 yards instead) just before a week’s vacation when rain was predicted – and my gauge was okay and the stitches felt good.

I fell for the few yards of pinky muddled grey and made note to try to recreate this with another spin and/or I’m pretty sure I unraveled a sweater with similar colors.

I knit more in that week than I likely had since the start of the year, or maybe before – no gardening, home improvement, office work, or major cleaning meant my wrist wasn’t in pain and could go for an hour or more knitting sessions.

And then I finished up at home – at a slower pace – and it was a good beach knitting project too – the wool wasn’t too sticky for sweaty seawater sunblock hands.

After washing and light blocking it still smells a bit of the beach (except the rotting sea-things) and didn’t change – I rarely wash garter things right off the needles, but this is headed for plastic summer storage so I wanted it to be as clean as possible.

So in the end I was able to tick a few boxes off: I acquired, spun, knit, and completed something within a year – something I want to become habit – less so on the acquisition end, but I’m almost always able to go to the state fiber fest and want to support the local and local-ish folks, even if it’s only $30 worth of fiber spread out over 3 booths; I finally made a decent (still needs work, but I didn’t have to run it through an unspin cycle at least) single; I figured out my current knitting speed is very roughly only around 700 yards a month; and I made a top-down triangle about twice as large as my last one.

And the jury is still out on the triangle until I can wear it a bit – I’m leaning towards it’s just not my thing (side to side triangles totally are) – but I’m always futzing with the less stretchy edge – tuck in under? fold it out? let it gape? and want more tail and less triangle – maybe this needed to be even bigger, or maybe I should have increased the tails more and the triangle less – I also could have eeked out 2 more rows of yarn, but didn’t want the stress, but there’s probably enough for a picot or other edging, but I don’t really like edging, unless it’s i-cord…?

I can wear it crossed in the front and tied in the back but I feel like I’m smuggling my own boobs, so I’ll most likely do the kerchief thing, or a half drape thing pinned somehow, or the traditional shawl across the shoulders thing…

Or the roll it up and pretend it’s a scarf thing.

We’ll see a few chillier months from now, and maybe N might be game to wear it instead?

But I am definitely in love with the mostly black top portion, and would like to spin and knit a mostly black thing soon, and locate the dirty pinky-grey yarn I think I have… But I have to finish or frog other things first.

 

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May 4, 2016 · 1:00 AM

Handspun helmet

To kick off my last hatmaking binge, I started with a ball of one of my earlier handspuns…

yella&greenyarn

(I thought it was older than this, but I called it a year old in 2013, so it isn’t that old…)

But anyway, a few (or one or two) years before 2012, I bought a pound of variegated dyed roving online that I thought would be mostly mustard, and it ended up being mostly lime green. So I bought another pound of mustard only and did a spin with it as one ply green and one yellow, and two of green, to see which I liked better or both, and tried to achieve a not too dramatic thick and thin yarn that was mostly bulky overall. (I think the final project was going to be one of those open cardigans with the spiral backs.) Then, like many things, I ignored it let it marinate in creative fairy juice until I got around to swatching, then spinning more.

But the colors, though I loved them off of my body, still weren’t convincing me that they should be on it.

Fast forward to a few months ago – those aforementioned hats were a birthday gift for one of my brothers who has indirectly kept me in yarn making equipment over the years from some nice gift certificates to a big spinning place, so something in handspun seemed appropriate for him and he’s cool with bright colors.

So I grabbed the cheery ball, thinking a hat could also finally be a swatch and I probably had enough, but the stuff was stiff and unyielding, and not having his head nearby to assess the perfect fit, I went with the stretchy patterns in soft superwash instead and put this one aside.

handspun cloche

And later finished it up for me – albeit very slowly – the stiff yarn is hell on the fingers.

handspun cloche profile

(These pics are before blocking, so things look a bit bumpier than they should be.)

It is a close-fitting woolen helmet, or cloche-like thing and I like it, though I’m still not convinced the colors are best for me – I can wear most greens and some yellows, but some greens are tricksters and look fine in some light and tragic in others – I don’t really care though.

A nice long bath softened everything up, but it is still dense, but perhaps not dense enough on the ears, so I might line them, but need to get some more winter wear in first to test them out. The late winter flirtations told me it had promise, but I didn’t leave the house in high wind which is often the achilles heel of bulky knit hats…

But this was another reminder that I have to pay more attention to my spinning, and loosen the hell up more. My favorite handspun yarns have been singles (though I still often have to run them through to take out a bit of spin afterward), some made from rolags, and from the fluffiest merino rovings. Otherwise, I’m getting a stiffy – not pre-drafting or fluffing up enough beforehand (I do have a lot of dense roving though), and giving it too much spin – at least I think those are my biggest problems…

So it’s back to the books and the basics a bit for me, and I think I’m going to let go of the thoughts for a bigger project with the variegated green stuff and play with it a bit instead…

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April 20, 2016 · 1:00 AM

$15 mistake; Middle-aged dreadlocks

I’ve gone to the last couple of fiber festivals with only $30 to spend on wool. This has actually been a blast rather than depressing because I take a penny candy approach to fiber and only buy an ounce or two of something here and there, and come home with a riot of color and new breeds to try out. If I’ve got a little extra cash after seeing all of the booths, I’ll go back for something in 4 ounces or so that caught my eye and spend my last $10-$15.

What caught my eye at the last NJ sheep festival was some Gotland – I had “gotten” some the previous year in a pale grey and loved spinning it. This was a darker chocolately grey – not too light, not too dark. I fondled some roving that was loose in a basket and asked if the breeder had more for sale.

gotland wad

I got it wound flat and sealed in a bag – it looked a bit odd to me, but I’m still a bit of a sheepy noob and figured it was just processed a bit differently…

But when I got home, it was what I feared – a felted mass.

It could have nearly been a sheepy collar as-is.

gotland collar

I’m not going to call out the breeder (who I spotted at Rhinebeck as well) because it was my fault for not inspecting  it before I bought it, and frankly, not exactly knowing what I was buying to begin with – perhaps this wasn’t really roving but woolen rope? Instant dreadlocks? A chair pad? When I asked for roving, the breeder thought I said, do you have a spiral of felted mess for sale?

So I ripped it apart and tugged it a bit to see if it could be salvageable into yarn.

(I didn’t want to leave it as felt – the point was to spin some more Gotland, and I wanted to get what I thought I got.)

gotland pile

The resulting “roving” was a limp yet stiff, lifeless mess.

So I tugged, and tugged, and tugged some more and managed to free a lock:

gotland staple

But I nearly freed some tendons and joints from their connective bits in the process, so it was not going to be worth it to try to completely free the fiber back into a softly spinnable state.

So I ran the whole shebang through the wheel to add a slight bit of twist to help round things out.

It was the fastest spinning I’ve ever done.

glotland yarn

After a nice long soak, it looked even more like dreadlocks.

gotland dreads

I had to try them on – playing with them took up more time than spinning them…

gotland ball

But now I’ve got a tad over 20 yards of mega bulky Gotland…

gotland spiral

And I might end up needle felting it into a chair pad after all…

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March 16, 2016 · 1:00 AM

March madness…

The last of the recent short series of hats is now off the needles and on a head.

turn a square on n

You can see the “seam” created by the jogless stripe technique outlined in the Turn a Square pattern – it’s barely noticeable when making more than three rows per color, but at two, it looks like one fat stitch, which is basically what it is…

Still, I think I mind it less than a jog, though I want N to wear it in the back of the hat or it will drive me bats…

turn a square in basket

His basket of handknits is also looking a bit drab – perhaps a more colorful scarf is needed…

And I’ll beat that dead horse about crazy weather – I’m sweating in the first week of March with temps in the low 80s and the yard is breaking out in blossoms nearly a month too soon…

But the weather feels like July when I first started spinning this superwash merino from Pigeonroof Studios for the 2015 Tour de Fleece…

PRS tree scum 3-ply

And it turned into a massive wipe-out, or rather detour, and I was in the wrong country, or another continent when I reached the finish line.

I’ve been wanting to spin for a specific purpose – start with a puff of wool and say I want it to become socks, and then I spin, and knit, and have a pair of socks.

I’ve sort of done that in the sense that I’ve managed to spin enough yarn at approximately the same weight to make something of it in the end, but I’ve failed on the last few sock attempts –  the last one was a bit too thick and not enough yards and this one is waaaaaay too thin and overspun.

I started spinning it slowly and somewhat gingerly, nursing some self-diagnosed tendonitis, and playing with my hand placement so I could switch it up if need be (that part I got down fairly well). Then the last few months of summer were too hot and humid to spin and I didn’t start back up again until a month or two ago, again only spinning for about 30 minutes per session to keep my meat and bones and sinew happy. And I spun, and I spun, and I spun faster, and faster, and harder and harder… And finally four ounces became nearly 600 yards of 3 ply near laceweight… It’s so smooth and tight it feels like silk, but it isn’t even remotely what I wanted for socks.

The last bit left on one of the bobbins – the last one spun most likely since it was nearly 100 more yards than the others, became a 2 ply from a center-pull ball. Since one of the plys is unspun a bit from the ball as it plys, the resulting yarn has a softer, fluffier hand and is thicker than the 3 ply.

PRS tree scum 2ply

Lesson learned.

In theory.

Since I’ve already “learned” this lesson too many times…

Since I don’t want to knit socks on tiny needles, this won’t be socks unless held doubled on the leg parts with commercial yarn feet. Instead it might be yet another neck thing – perhaps joined with that mossy green mohair…

Next spinning project is going back to the basics and bulky, maybe super bulky…

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October 21, 2015 · 3:00 AM

Vested, or not my b[v]est

Once again I got to contemplating my frumpy vest.*

vest-front

I thought I fixed it enough to be happy enough wearing it at the time of that last post. I had added more length, replaced the buttons, and I thought I re-knit the shoulder edging with fewer stitches or smaller needles, but I’m guessing I just gave it a good block. But after unpacking it from summer storage (from a few summers ago, actually) it had reverted back to its stupidly pointy shoulders.

vest-side

This is not acceptable.

It would be almost okay if the vest was wide and boxy and I wore it open to just hang there and flop around, but I figured something so rustic should be more fitted to take down the frump factor a bit.

Only now it seemed a bit too fitted  in other parts too – the buttons at the bust gaped a bit.

vest-bust

So once I again, I set out to modify it.

vest-yarn

I had so little yarn left after making it the first time around, I was hesitant to just frog the whole thing and start over again. I’m still not crazy about vests, but this was the perfect amount of handspun yarn for one. The yarn matches my bike too, but there is too much of it that even if I pimped out the seat and handle bars and other things I’d still have an even more awkward amount left over. And I don’t want pillows or bags out of it, and it’s too rough for next to skin wear, so hats and scarves are out…

So I tried yet again to make it work.

I ripped out the garter armhole edging, opened up the side seams and added a little triangle at the pit for more bust ease, and reknit the armhole with an applied icord.

vest-moss

That worked out to be the perfect solution – much better fit with no pointy stuff on the shoulders.

vest-armholes

And I discovered I can wear it over my orange hoodie if I’m invited to march in the garish parade.

But if I wear it open as more of an outerwear thing, it should have a pocket. I won’t go into the rationalization except I think of fitted things having a degree of implied misery, and open things comfort and convenience and of course, that means having a “snot pocket” – someplace big enough to store a hankie for my ever dripping nose once it falls below 70 degrees.

vest-deck

I think I have just enough yarn leftover for that…

*The color is most accurate in the old post – the thing is a bit more subdued and overall burgundy-ish in real life.

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