Possessed to Knit

Birthday Bookmark

I knitted this bookmark for my friend Lawrence's upcoming birthday.  He and his partner, John, are very talented and creative and we often exchange handmade gifts.   Years ago, as I was making the transition from English style knitting to Continental style knitting, I sent them one of the many cotton dishcloths I knitted to retrain my hands.  When I visited them at Christmas, they had the cloth in a basket, nicely displayed.  I explained that they could use the cloth, though the colors would fade over time, but still, it was just a dishcloth.  They told me how much they treasure handmade items, even my little dishcloth. This bookmark is knitted with spindle spun yarn.  After I spun the cotton singles, I plied them twice, creating a cabled 4-ply yarn.  Even with the cabling, it is still very thin yarn.  I used my 2.75 mm Knit Picks circular needles which are nice and pointy for this lace knitting.  The pattern is from last year's Knitting Pattern - A- Day calendar.  Their version used Koigu and size 3.75 mm (size 5) needles.  I did an extra pattern repeat to make it more of an appropriate bookmark size.  This is a great pattern for my small amounts of handspun yarn. 

Weekend Spinning

Here is my silk and wool yarn (50% of each) that I spun from prepared roving.  This 3-ply yarn turned out to be a bit darker than the original roving.  When I look at it closely, I can see little flecks of color, especially red and blue, throughout the plied yarn.  I have a total of 420+ yards of yarn at 20 - 22 wpi, weighing 3.7 oz.  Barbara Clorite had written some helpful instructions on using up all three bobbins when making a 3-ply yarn on the Yahoo Spindler's list.  She suggests that once your first bobbin is used up that you make an Andean plying bracelet with the bobbin that has the largest amount of singles on it.  Then you use 2 plies from this bracelet and the other bobbin to continue making your 3-ply yarn.  When you are down to one bobbin left, then you just Navaho ply the last bobbin.  Using her method, I made 40 more yards of plied yarn than if I had stopped plying after the first bobbin ran out of singles.  There is a pattern for a pair of cabled socks in Favorite Socks that I think will work well with this yarn.

Weekend Spinning

I spent some time over the weekend spinning this silk/wool blend on my Wyatt Norwegian wheel.  This roving is 50% silk and 50% merino which was recommended by Judith MacKenzie as one of the best blends for socks.  I picked this roving up at a previous MSWF and it is wonderful to spin.  I am spinning 100% bombyx silk on my Natalie spindle and it has been a challenge for me.  I am always amazed at how differently the roving and the yarn look.  This 3-ply yarn is 18 - 22 wpi and looks a bit darker than the roving.  I knitted up this sample on my 2.25 mm Lantern Moon Rosewood Sox Stix.  I'm almost through with my first bobbin of singles using a 1:12 ratio.  I find that 100% silk singles can get overtwisted if I am not extremely careful with my spinning.  This silk/wool blend is very forgiving and I am not finding any overtwisted sections.  I think this will turn out to be a very nice and durable sock yarn.

Felted Hats

I had about 6 oz of my handspun Icelandic yarn leftover from the raglan sweater and I decided to give felting a try.  I've never felted on purpose before and I found this free hat pattern from Crystal Palace yarns.  These hats were very quick to knit on size 11 needles and I used my Denise needles (which I bought for the rare occasion that I need a larger size needle).  These hats were so huge before felting, I thought I had done something wrong.  I put them in hot water in my washing machine with some Euclan woolwash.  There was hardly any felting after the first 15 minutes.  I then added a pillowcase to the mix and felting took place much more quickly, almost too quickly.  I rinsed them in cold water and then placed each one over a plastic bowl.  I put them out in the sun this afternoon to accelerate the drying process.  Now I have two felted hats to add to my Dulaan Project donation.  I am clearing out some of my stash, too, creating a win-win situation. 

Icelandic Raglan Completed

I've completed my Icelandic Raglan sweater for the Dulaan project.  I used size 9 needles for the body and sleeves and size 7 needles for the ribbing.  The gauge was 4 sts and about 5.5 rows per inch on size 9 needles in the stockinette stitch.  This sweater was a good review of button and buttonhole placement for me.  I took a "7 Things that Can Make or Break Your Sweater" class in March at Springwater Fiber Workshop.  Our instructor told us about using the actual row gauge to determine how many sts to pick up for the button and buttonhole bands.  With 5.5 rows per inch along the sweater edge and 5 sts per inch on my size 7 needles, I picked up 5 sts for every 6 sts.  I think it worked okay, but the buttonhole band turned out wavier than I like.  (Please feel free to add your insight, Patrick).  I see that I also need to work on my buttonhole spacing, at least this sweater was practice for me.  I found my Denise needles especially helpful as I could just change the tips depending on what I needed next like when I used the size 8 for binding off.  This is not the softest sweater I have knitted, but I am hoping it will still keep a Mongolian child warm this winter. 

Icelandic Raglan

I started this child sized raglan sweater for the Dulaan Project.  All knitted items received by July 1st will be sent to Mongolia to help the Mongolian children stay warm during the winter.  I have put my other projects aside as I hope to complete this sweater and put it in the mail before the deadline.  I am using my handspun Icelandic Chloe yarn.  I was going to knit myself a vest with it and then realized it would make a warm cardigan for a child.  I expected to get 3.5 sts per inch on size 9 needles like I did when I swatched.  The sweater is turning out to be 4 sts and 5 rows per inch so I am making a child's size 8 sweater instead of size 12 as I had planned.  I am adjusting the recommended increases and decreases to accommodate the gauge difference.  This pattern is Ann Norling's Kid's Top-down Raglan (#53) and does not mention the addition of any stitches at the underarm for the body and sleeves.  I will likely be picking up 2 extra sts when I start the sleeves to minimize the hole I expect to have on the first round.  The pattern recommends knitting the sleeves back and forth.  I will be knitting them in the round with my 40" Denise needle using the Magic Loop.  I wasn't sure how much I would like these needles when I bought them and it turns out they are perfect and convenient for this type of project.

Cashmere Silk Yarn

I've been spindle spinning my cashmere and my silk on separate spindles.  Here is a sample of one ply of each knit on size 5 (3.75 mm)Addi Turbo lace needles.  This is a reduced version of the snowflake pattern in A Russian Lace Scarf to Knit (by Dixie Falls and Jane Fournier) published in the July/August 2007 Piecework magazine.  The larger holes are from 2 yos at once followed by a k1,p1 into the 2 yos in the next row.  A size 4 (3.5 mm) needle might make a neater looking lace.  I will also give just doing 1 yo and then doing the k1,p1 into it on the following row a try.  This yarn is about 28 wpi and the silk strand helps to cover all the textury bits in the cashmere single.  I did card the cashmere into punis, yet I still ended up with more texture than I wanted.   The swatch is very soft with nice drape.  The cashmere is nice to spin and I have another ounce to card and spin.  The tussah silk is more challenging to work with and I am using my Satine Natalie spindle to spin it.  This is a great spindle project and there is sure to be more sampling in my future.

MSWF - Swatches

I've been experimenting with this roving that I bought at MSWF from The Barefoot Spinner.  I would like to knit a cardigan.  I could be adventurous and design my own pattern or I could use on of my Knitting Pure & Simple patterns.  I guess I will spin the yarn first before I decide.  I spun some samples of singles yarn, washed them, blocked them, and knitted them up.  The one on the lower left is my first swatch.  I boldly decided this would likely be my yarn and spun quite a bit of it.  I used the 1:8 ratio on my Wyatt Norwegian and drafted about 1 treadle per inch.  This thin, wiry yarn is 20 wpi and 4.5 sts per inch on size 6 needles.  I then increased the take up and drafted about 2 inches per treadle for the bottom swatch on the left.  The resulting yarn is a bit uneven at 12 - 16 wpi and about 4 sts per inch on a size 8 needle.  My favorite is the swatch on the top.  I used my Lendrum with a ratio of 1:5 (the bulky/plying head) and drafted about 1 inch per treadle.  This yarn is much more even, about 14 - 16 wpi and a little over 4 sts per inch on size 8 needles, so I think we have a winner! 

Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival

I purchased this lovely Romney mixed with a little Alpaca roving from the Barefoot Spinner at the festival yesterday.  My big news is that I got to meet Opal!  She even helped sort the fleeces on Friday for the fleece show like a MSWF regular.  She, Patrick and I had a wonderful time looking at wheels and roving together.  Opal is considering a second wheel and did quite nicely on the Schacht Ladybug.  She invited me to try it and I had a little trouble adjusting it.  She also did well on the Lendrum which is the one I would vote for.  I have mine set up very conveniently for plying.  I look forward to hearing her final decision.

I enjoyed checking out Patrick's entries in the Skein & Garment competition.  I was thrilled to see Mr. Penney's Argyle sweater in person, perfect zipper and all.  I did disagree with the judges, giving it third place.  Patrick's handspun and handwoven scarf was gorgeous and it won First place. 

After frolicking with Patrick and Opal, I met Kate and Toni at the Junior Spinning Contest.  The young spinners are so much fun and it is a joy to watch them compete.  Sadly, Kate will be moving to Florida this summer and this was our last contest together.  I have learned so much about alpacas and their fiber from her.  She also made our knitting classes together a lot more fun.  I will truly miss you, Kate!

Cashmere & Silk Sampling

I've been carding my cashmere fiber into punis with my cotton cards and spinning the punis on my Cascade Shasta spindle.  I've also been spinning natural silk on my Natalie spindle given to me by Opal.  I made some plied samples.  The top sample is 2-ply cashmere at 20 wpi.  The bottom sample is 2 plies of cashmere with 1 ply of silk at 18 wpi.  The silk adds more body to the yarn and helps to smooth out the textury cashmere singles.  I will have to make some longer plied samples and knit them up before I can decide which yarn I like better.  I should also give one ply of each a try as 2-ply yarn is better for lace and I plan on knitting a lacy scarf with this handspun yarn.