Possessed to Knit

Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival

I had a fun day at this year's Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.  The weather was perfect, sunshine with temps in the 70s.  Best of all, Kate came up from Florida with some of her fellow knitters and joined us at the Junior Spinning Contest.  I enjoyed hearing all about how she and her family are doing. We also reminisced about our days of taking knitting and spinning classes together at the festival.

A few items did manage to come home with me from the Festival.  Starting on the left, is Fat Cat Knits Merino Superwash top dyed in the Happy colorway.  I have already started spindle spinning it.  Next, we have Rock Creek Yarn's Twisterino Superwash Wool in the Baby Feet colorway and Three Irish Girls Adorn Sock yarn in the Hello, World! colorway.  The roving on the right is Fat Cat Knits Polwarth Wool Combed top in the Shenandoah colorway.  MSWF is one of my favorite days of the year and I had a wonderful time.

Purple Queen Art Club Batt

I have been spindle spinning my Purple Queen Art Club Batts over the past few weeks.  I love the colors in this batt and I enjoy spinning with my spindles, especially my Spindlewood Square spindles (front and left), my Cascade St. Helens spindle (right), and my Kundert spindle (back).  I will make a 3-ply yarn and use my Lendrum for the plying.  I have also been watching Judith MacKenzie's Popular Wheel Mechanics and The Gentle Art of Plying DVDs.  I have taken several of her classes, she is a wonderfully kind spinning teacher.  Having her DVDs is better as I can review a technique at any time.  For instance, I have improved my worsted join and plying joins as I could replay her DVDs in slow motion.  Spinning is such a fun and challenging craft and I'm always looking for a way to make my handspun yarn even nicer.

French Press Cozy

Here is a French Press Cozy that I knitted my friend, John, for his upcoming birthday.  He and Lawrence will be traveling soon so I sent it on Friday and it should arrive tomorrow.  They got me the Vogue Knitting Stitch-A-Day calendar for Christmas and this stitch pattern is from the calendar.  I used size 6 needles and casted on 60 sts with my Art Club Boy Crazy 2-ply yarn.  I worked garter stitch for the top and bottom edges, however, I ended up learning a bit about cable splay.  It is better to increase right before starting the cables and decrease before the edging to minimize the waviness created by the cables.  I underestimated how much the cables would pull the fabric in.  I ended up then knitting large garter stitch button bands on the edges with size 5 needles.  I realized also that this cozy might be more decorative than functional as it might be a challenge to keep coffee from spilling on it.  Lawrence and John are very supportive of my knitting and spinning, and for that I am grateful.  I just hope their French Press is the same size as mine ;)

Santa Baby Art Club Batt

I am gradually working my way through my Art Club Batts and this is the Christmas one called, "Santa Baby".  It reminded me of Valentine's Day, too.  It is a blend of wool, tencel, and sparkle.  Nikol's unique batts force me to expand my spinning to accommodate a variety of textures.  I used my Gem II with the Woolee Winder at the 1:4.5 ratio for the singles and the 1:8.5 ratio for the plying.  The resulting yarn weighs 5.6 ounces and measures about 150 yards at 9 to 11 wpi.  It was a fun project to spin over the weekend.  I think it would make a lovely Christmas hat for next winter.  Jared Flood's Habitat might just be the perfect pattern for this yarn.

New Year's Day

Here is my last finished object for 2010, a handspun handknit hat.  The yarn is a 2-ply I spun from one of my Art Club Batts.  I used the toque-shaped hat pattern from Anna Zilboorg's 45 Fanciful Hats and sizes 7 and 5 Addi Turbo needles with the Magic Loop for the crown.  The braid on the edge and at the crown was completed by working from the other end of my yarn as two strands are needed to knit it.

I took a look through my Completed Projects blogs to gather my stats for the year.  I did not blog about every completed project as sometimes I inadvertently sent a project off before I photographed it.  So here is the tally for 2010:  12 pairs of socks, 12 hats (two handspun), 2 sweaters, 4 shawls (one handspun), 3 scarves, 3 pairs of mittens, 2 pairs of mitts, and one handspun and felted bowl.

I hope everyone is having a Happy New Year.

Marled Yarn

I spun this marled sock yarn with roving samples from a class I took with Judith MacKenzie McCuin at MSWF.  She showed us how to hold three different rovings in our fiber hand and then switch colors as we spun our singles.  I had about 3 ounces of these sample rovings and spun the singles at a ratio of 1:16 on my Wyatt Norwegian.  The spinning process did get to be a bit tedious over the course of 3 bobbins.  I had a lot of purple so I used that more often than the other colors. 

I thought I put an ounce of singles on each bobbin, but one bobbin had much less on it than the other two.  Following Barbara Clorite's advice, I made an Andean bracelet with one bobbin and then continued with my 3-ply yarn.  I plied this yarn on my Majacraft Gem with the Woolie Winder at a ratio of 1:12.75.  The dark green roving looks like black next to the other colors.  The yarn is between 17 and 23 wpi.  Toe-up socks would be best for this yarn so I can knit till I run out of yarn. 

Raha Scarf Completed

I knitted this Raha Scarf from Knitted Lace of Estonia by Nancy Bush with the handspun alpaca yarn featured in my previous blog.  The pattern calls for size 4 needles and fine yarn.  I used size 6 needles as this yarn was a bit heavier.  I tried a few of the patterns in the book, and this pattern turned out to be the best match for my yarn.  I have about an ounce leftover as the barber pole section was really standing out.  The scarf is 60" long and 6" wide, which is a nice size for a scarf.  I enjoyed finally knitting something out of Nancy's book, especially after taking her class with Judith at the 2009 MSWF on Spinning and Knitting Estonian Lace. 

Alpaca Yarn

Here is the 2-ply alpaca yarn I spun with roving I purchased at MSWF.  My idea was to spin the pretty blue/gray/lilac roving into a 2-ply yarn for my knitting sister, Laura, for her upcoming birthday.  I split the roving in half length-wise and spun each half on one bobbin on my Wyatt Norwegian at a 1:12 ratio. This roving turned out to be Suri alpaca which has a long staple length (6 to 8 inches).  Huacaya alpacas have a shorter staple length (3 to 5 inches).  Suri alpaca fiber is more like hair whereas Huacaya alpaca fiber is soft and crimpy like wool. 

Suri alpaca fiber can take a lot of twist and I found it easy to add too much twist.  With not enough twist, though, it doesn't have much body.  Judith MacKenzie McCuin would warn us that we could spin it into a wire if we were not careful.  I spun and plied this yarn over Fourth of July weekend and it was not the stunning skein of yarn I had hoped it would be.  I spared Laura this fibery injustice and sent her some Bugga instead.  This skein is about 300 yards and weighs about 4 ounces at 17 to 23 wpi.  Some of the color sections became mismatched and created quite the barber-pole effect as well.  I had not spun Suri before, so it was a new spinning experience for me.   

Spinner's Lace Shawl Completed

I have completed my Spinner's Lace Shawl for my friend, Kate.  I spun a fleece from her alpaca Cher into a 2-ply yarn and knitted the shawl on size 8 Addi Lace needles.  Cher's fleece was so nice to spin and knit.  The blocked shawl is 60" across and 28" long and weighs 9 ounces. The pattern was interesting to knit, and there was some unknitting involved as stitch pattern was not exactly intuitive for me.  I will be making myself a shawl or a scarf from the rest of my 2-ply Cher yarn.   Kate lives in Florida now so I will be sure to send it to her before the cooler weather kicks in.   Kate and I will each have something to remind us of all the fun we had together in our MSWF classes. 

Laurel Hat Completed

Here is Laurel (from Jared Flood's Made in Brooklyn pattern book) in handspun Art Club Birthday Batt yarn on size 7 Addi Lace 16" circular needles.  Ann was very kind to send me more of her wonderful stitch markers and she included her very clever row counter/stitch marker.  I especially like Ann's markers when I am using larger size needles (as I do most of my knitting in the size 0 to size 2 range).  She made a nice variety of her beautiful markers.  I marked the center of the hat with a unique marker and I found them to be incredibly helpful as I knitted the six sections of this complex hat in my fairly dark yarn.

Laurel is blocking here.  I discovered that it is difficult to make bobbles the same size when using handspun yarn that varies a good bit in diameter.   The pattern was interesting to knit and I do enjoy knitting with my handspun yarn.  I never did quite figure out the gauge as I could not measure it on the actual hat.  The hat is a little big and might have turned out nicer on size 6 needles. The ribbing was done on 3.25 mm needles and would have been even more difficult going down 3.00 mm needles.  It turned out to be a fun handspun project for summer knitting.  Thank you to Ann for her delightful markers!