Possessed to Knit

Handspun Thayer Completed

I spun merino roving with my Spanish Peacock Russian support spindles and plied the singles on my wheel to create a 2-ply lace yarn.  I had 8 ounces or so of a gray merino fleece and I sent it off to be processed into roving.  The resulting yarn is just over 4 ounces and it has a wide range of wraps per inch.  It was a challenge to spin and of course, the very thin parts from one ball were plied with the very thin parts of the other ball.

I wanted a nice lacy pattern and selected Brooklyn Tweed's Thayer design.  This time around, I slipped both stitches before purling two stitches together through the back loops and that step went much more smoothly.  This particular design has lace patterning on the right and wrong side.  I also took out one of the 19 stitch repeats to optimize the limited amount of handspun yarn.  I used my Knit Picks size 6 straight 10" needles and the entire ball of yarn.  I am not set up yet to block with my blocking wires, so I washed the scarf, spun it out, and then let it dry on my drying rack.  I'm not happy with the edges and blocking it better would improve the scarf over all.  With the wide range of thickness throughout the yarn, I thought that blocking it on the drying rack would be good enough.  This scarf is about 8" wide and 74" long and feels very soft with a nice spring to it. 

Handspun Leafy Hat Completed

Here is my completed handspun Leafy hat.  I have been unpacking some of my handspun yarn and thought these two would make a nice hat together.  The gray yarn is from a border leicester cross fleece that I processed myself and spindle spun into a 2-ply yarn.  The natural yarn is wool of unknown origin and it was a bit thinner than the gray yarn.  The Leafy Hat pattern is from the November 2009 - January 2010 issue of Cast On magazine.  The designer suggests a tubular cast on for the k2, p2 rib and gives a lot of helpful details.  I used my size 6 (4.00 mm) Addi Lace Click needles and my knitting thimble to carry both yarns with the gray on the right and the natural on the left.  I did not eliminate the jog as there was not much of one with the gray yarn starting each color pattern repeat row.  I made the medium sized hat and had a gauge of about 5 stitches and 6 rows to the inch.  I did a lot of weaving in of the natural during the long stretches of gray stitches.  A smaller needle size would have created a firmer fabric and I will keep that in mind for future projects.  I am quite enjoying this hat phase of mine, a nice change of pace from socks.   

Handspun Lace Beret Completed

I spun up some alpaca seconds that Kate had given to me into a 2-ply yarn on my Schacht Cherry Matchless wheel.  I had the alpaca processed into roving and rediscovered it as I unpacked my craft items after our move.  I started off with the 11:1 ratio in double drive with a semi-worsted draw and switched to 9:1 ratio as I was getting too much twist.  I made a center-pull ball and plied on the highest ratio, 22:1.  I have read about to a larger whorl size for plying worsted, but with my Matchless, I ply even faster with my smallest super hi-speed whorl.  On my Lendrum, I was limited to the whorl sizes on the plying head flyer.  The Matchless set-up allows me to use any whorl for plying so I went with my fastest one.

I have to be careful when I spin alpaca as it can take a lot of twist and become wiry.  I was disappointed, though, in the stitch definition for this pattern and wonder if a little more twist would have improved it.  The hat is the Lace Beret from Vogue Knitting Fall 2009.  I started off with my 2.00 mm (size 0) Addi bamboo dpns, but they a little short to handle so many stitches so I used my 40" Addi 2.00 mm Circular needles and the Magic Loop.  I moved up to the 2.75 mm (size 2) Addi  Lace 16" Circular needles for the patterned section of the hat switching to my 32" Addi Sock Rocket needles to work the Magic Loop for the crown .  This project used 3.2 ounces of my 3.4 ounce ball of handspun alpaca.  I'm glad I had enough for this fun project.  Although I checked the errata for this pattern, there were a few mistakes in the chart.  I did not recognize the wrongly placed purl stitches on rows 21 & 22.  I did see something wrong on row 49 and then read all about it in the helpful Ravelry comments for this pattern.   

Gyokuro Socks Completed

Here are my completed Gyokuro socks from Cookie A's August 2012 Sock Club installment.  I knitted them for my neighbor, Kristin, who helped us so much when we moved from Virginia to Alabama.  Amongst other things, she sent us our mail that had not been forwarded, checked on our furnace repair, and put out our overflowing recycling.  She certainly is busy enough already with her young family and her novels and we are deeply indebted to her for her generosity.

The yarn is Enchanted Knoll Farm Superwash sock yarn in the Genmaicha colorway and this color happens to look very nice on Kristin.  I used my 2.25 mm Signature Needle Arts 32 inch circular needles.  I hadn't been very happy with the needle joins, but the stiletto tips were very helpful for this project.  I used my 2.00 Addi Turbo needles for the heels, but not the toes.  I thought the size difference would detract from the toe patterning.

I had an issue with the foot pattern and the lone twisted stitch in the middle.  The reverse stockinette before this stitch was looser than the reverse stockinette after the stitch and this made for a very uneven looking sock.  One might see this better on the Ravelry project pages.  For the second sock, I started the Magic Loop on the far right of the foot instead of just before the middle twisted stitch like I did on the first sock, and this improved the disparity between the two sides.  I tightened up the stitches of the first sock with a dpn, a bit tedious, but well worth the result.

Thank you to Kristin for being such an amazing neighbor! 

Yarn Love Socks Completed

Here are my completed Yarn Love socks in the Flirt colorway.  I started off using my 2.00 Addi Turbo 40" circular needles and they were coming out too small with 72 stitches and the short-row heel that I like so much.  I changed to my Signature Needle Arts 2.25 mm 32" circular needles for the right sock.  I switched to my 2.25 mm Addi Turbo 32" needle for the second sock as I wanted to use the Signature Needle Arts stiletto tips for a Cookie A sock pattern.  I returned to the 2.00 mm Addi Turbo needles for the heels and toes to reinforce these vulnerable areas.  This Juliet yarn by Yarn Love is very nice to knit with and is made of 75% superwash wool and 25% nylon.  We are having some cooler weather and I can finally wear them.

Maria's Snoopy Sweater Completed

Here are Colin (left) & Caitlin (right) posing in front of the Snoopy sweater I knitted for my sister, Maria.  I used the Knitting Pure & Simple Classic Drop Shoulder Pullover (#9729) pattern and centered the Snoopy design on it.  I knitted the sleeves in the round from the top down.  I started off using my size 7 (4.5 mm) Addi Lace Clicks and the spring inside one of the tips broke after I completed the back.  Skacel sent me another tip as I explained I now live at least an hour from any yarn stores.  I used my fixed Addi Turbo needles for the rest of the sweater with size 5 (3.75 mm) for the ribbing.  I had a gauge of about 4.7 sts and 6.5 rows per inch.  The neck looks a little small, so we will see how that works out.  I used Impeccable acrylic yarn which comes in a nice variety of primary colors.  I worked intarsia for most of the design and duplicate stitched Snoopy's ear & nose, the grass, and the black lines going across the yellow and red sections of the barn.

Lawrence's Manly Aran Socks Completed

These socks are a belated Christmas gift for my good friend, Lawrence.  At the end of January, Al started a new job so we moved from Northern Virginia to central Alabama.  Needless to say, the move put a big crimp in my knitting time.  We are slowly getting back to normal and now I finally have some time to knit and spin. 

The Manly Aran sock pattern is in Wendy Johnson's Toe-Up Socks for Every Body and the yarn is Knit Picks Risata in the Wood Sage colorway which is the closest I could get to Lawrence's favorite color of jade.  I like the yarn as it is a wool/cotton/elastic blend which should keep its shape and not be too warm.  Lawrence received Turkish wool slippers for Christmas and hopefully, he can wear these socks with his new slippers.

Wendy's patterns are a lot of fun to knit and she cleverly designs them so they look more difficult than they are.  For instance, every other row of this design is just knitting the knits and purling the purls.  She also gives a nice range of sizes which I find helpful.  I started with size 0 Addi Turbo needles for the toes and neglected to realize that I needed them for the sole and went to the 2.5 mm Addi Lace needles for the entire sock.  I eventually discovered my mistake (as the socks were larger than I expected) and got back on track.  I also knitted both of these socks at the same time as I have been disappointed when my socks would turn out differently knitting them one at a time.  I found making a neat bound off edge challenging, too, and that took a few attempts, but well worth the effort.

Thank you for your patience, Lawrence, you will receive your socks this week!

 

Handspun Silk/Wool Yarn

I spun this 2-ply Dragon Fly pinks and blues roving on my Cherry Matchless spinning wheel.  I have more of this 65% superwash merino wool/35% silk roving in two other colorways and thought I would experiment with this 4 oz batch of roving.

I used the high speed whorl at the 17.5:1 ratio for the singles.  I guess I was treadling a little faster than I realized and I ended up with some overspun sections of the singles.  I plied with the super high speed whorl at the 22:1 ratio as I like to ply fine yarns as fast as possible.  I found some underplied sections of yarn and went back and put it through on my wheel again with the 9:1 ratio, paying special attention to the underplied sections.  As a result, the plying twist is very tight but not overly so and I do not plan on going back and taking out any twist.

For my larger Dragonfly silk/wool projects (I have 8 oz of roving in a blue & red colorway and 8 oz in a pink & green colorway), I will spin the singles on a slower whorl, starting with the 15.5:1 ratio.  I will likely ply again on the 22:1 super high speed whorl.

This is lovely roving to spin. It turns out that I have about 400 yards at 14 to 18 wpi, which is not enough to make the Orchid Thief shawl I was planning.  At the very least, it will make a nice silky scarf.   

Norwegian Star Slippers Completed

Here are Joshua's Norwegian Star Slippers knit with Cascade 220 in the Puget Sound and Black colorways.  I noticed with these slippers that though black is called the main color, that the Fair Isle pattern looks better when I have the black yarn in the contrasting color spot (the left side of my knitting thimble).  I had the black yarn on the right side of my knitting thimble for Justin's slippers and the pattern does not stand out as strongly.  It has also been challenging for me to make the second slipper the same size as the first.  I ended up going up to the 2.5 mm needle for the second slipper.  The checkered pattern on the cuff was also difficult to line up with all the picked up sts followed by some shaping decreases.  I certainly learned a lot from this project!

I like to keep a tally of my knitting accomplishments for the year.  In 2012, I knitted one set-in sleeve sweater, 1 tank top, 3 hats (1 handspun), 3 scarves (1 handspun), 1 cowl, one handspun tea cozy, two pairs of Fair Isle slippers, and 11 pairs of socks.  I hope to knit with more of my handspun in 2012.

Sock Experiment

I have been experimenting with my travel socks, which are what I knit when I am standing in line or any other time I happen to be waiting.  The sock on the left is Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock sock yarn in the X-Mas Rock colorway.  The experiment is that I cut the skein in half and knit one round with one half and then switch to the other half for the next round.  I did this because my first attempt gave me an even uglier green stripe down the middle.  I did stagger the colors when starting the second skein half, but as you can see, there is still a green stripe down the middle (and a yellow one down the back).  So, I will give one of Yarnissima's patterns a try, either Brainless or Fire Starter.  I will not be switching skeins either, as I found it to be a bit tedious and did not like the line of warped stitches where the skein change occured.

The other sock is Yarn Love in the Flirt colorway.  I had tried this on size 0 (2.00 mm) needles and it was too small.  I'm using my new Signature Needle Arts 2.25mm circular 32" needles and I'm not crazy about the needle join.  When I go to move the stitches around to work the Magic Loop, the needle edge catches on the stitches and is a bit of work to push the needle through to the other side.  The cord gets twisty, too, and I wonder if I will eventually break the join.  I'm using Chia Goo size 2.00 mm on the X-Mas Rock socks.  The cord is a bit stiff, but the join is much smoother.  I like the joins on my Addi Turbo needles, but I bend those needles as I knit tightly, so my search continues for the perfect sock needles.