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.   

Merino/Possum Handspun Yarn

Here is the Merino/Possum 2-ply yarn I spun from the lovely roving that Laura gave me for my birthday.  I spindle spun the 4 oz of roving over 8 different spindles.  I had started with lighter spindles, around 1 oz, and realized I liked spinning it better on slightly heavier spindles of about 1.4 oz.  The heavier spindles had more momentum and less backspin.

I then proceeded to spindle ply all 4 ounces of singles into a 2-ply yarn with my All-Day Lollipop spindle.  The large whorl works well for holding so much yarn.  The spindle plying does go slowly, but I was not in a hurry and just did a little plying at a time.  I like being able to keep a close eye on the yarn and add more twist as necessary.  Plying on a wheel is much faster, and though I do check as I ply, sometimes I have to go back and add more twist to the entire skein.

This 4 oz skein of yarn is about 360 yards and 14 to 20 wpi.  The possum adds a nice texture to the yarn and the possum is very soft.  I'm thinking about using this yarn to knit a Thayer scarf of my very own. 

Button-Up Neck Warmer Completed

Here is the completed Button-Up Neck Warmer from Honey's combed fleece that I made for my sister Maria's coworker, Susie.  I used my size 9 Addi Lace Click needles and noticed the  singles catching on the needle joins a bit.  I had decided not to ply the yarn after realizing that I only had a little over two ounces out of the original 8 ounces (which can happen with combing).  Maria cleverly suggested the cute sheep buttons and I found these on the Knit Picks website.  I reinforced the buttonholes by topstitching around them.  The scarf is a little longer than recommended by the pattern, but this way it is long enough for Susie to wear on top of her coat.  This is not the softest yarn I have spun and I am getting better at it as I practice with my processed Icelandic fleece.  I also sent Susie the Handspun Fenimore hat to go along with the scarf to keep her warm in Michigan this winter.

Icelandic Fenimore Hat Completed

Here is the Fenimore hat I knitted with my next handspun Icelandic sample.  I spun this sample with less twist than my previous sample by increasing the Scotch Tension on my wheel.  I also weighted the hank as it dried with a hand towel to help ease out the extra twist.  Plied yarns work best for knitting, however, this Icelandic would be too heavy if it were plied.  I just need to achieve a yarn that is soft and not over-spun, yet not so underspun that it will fall apart.

Some sections of this 4 oz skein were slightly overspun and this interesting pattern hides them well.  I went down a needle size to size 7 for the body of the hat and size 4 for the ribbing to compensate for the thicker yarn I used for this pattern.  I like how the cables show up more prominently versus the knit and purl design from the Amstel hat pattern.  I certainly learned a lot about the qualities of my processed Icelandic fleece and my resulting handspun yarn from this hat project.  Now I can start the spinning for my sweater.

Icelandic Sampling

I have been experimenting with my Bulky Flyer on my Cherry Matchless wheel.  I used it to do some plying and then I got out my processed Icelandic fleece from Schacht Fleece Farm.  I bought a long Lendrum driveband and put it on my Matchless to spin in Scotch Tension with the Bulky Flyer.  I had to cut the band, melt the ends with a match, get them to stick and then shave off the lumpy excess.  Probably the only thing I do not like about my Matchless is that there is no way to get an elastic drive band on without cutting it first.

Using the slow whorl, I spun two samples up, one at 6:1 and one at 7.5:1.  Schacht makes an even slower whorl that is the size of a dinner place with ratios of 4:1 and 5:1.  The sample on the left above is the 6:1 single knit on size 9 needles below the garter stitch row and size 8 needles above the garter stitch row.  There is a bit of slant in the swatch as I did not weight the singles as they dried, so I will do that next time.  The sample on the right is the 7.5:1 single knit in the Amstel Hat stitch pattern to see if the patterning would show up with this yarn and it turns out that it does not.  These singles are about 11 to 14 wpi.  I'm spinning a new bobbin at 6:1 and trying to make it a little thicker, but some thin spots are sneaking in.  I would like to make this top down jacket and got the 4 sts per inch gauge with the size 8 needles.  I will likely knit a hat and do some more sampling with the new bobbin of yarn and proceed from there as sampling with handspun is essential for success. 

Sheep Carousel Tea Cozy Completed

Here is my completed Sheep Carousel Tea Cozy, a birthday present for my good friend, Lawrence.  I had started a different project for him, however, I quickly realized I would not complete it in time for his special day.  I adore Kate Davies delightful patterns and remembered that I had given Lawrence a teapot years ago. I downloaded the pattern and got started.

This design is for a much larger teapot so I adjusted the pattern for a smaller teapot.  I changed the Latvian Braid to a two-color garter stitch pattern.  I also added a column of white stitches on edges of the second pattern repeat (each pattern repeat has two sheep in it and each half of the cozy between the steeks has two repeats of this pattern repeat).  I used 2.5 mm needles instead of 3 mm and eliminated the ribbing and the i-Cord edging at the bottom.  The yarn is handspun dark 2-ply yak for the background and 2-ply wool for the sheep.  I wish I had made the spout steek as long as the handle steek. 

I crocheted the steeks before I cut them following Kate Davies helpful tutorial found here and they worked out very nicely.   I used my knitting thimble with the dark yak yarn as the background (so on the right yarn holder) and the white wool on the left, except for when I worked the sheep faces, then I switched yarns, as per Kate's clever recommendation, to help the sheep faces stand out better.

Lawrence inspires me with all of his wonderful creations and I hope he is having a fantastic birthday!

Honey's Handspun Yarn

Here is the yarn I spun from Honey's combed fleece.  It ranges between 10 and 16 wpi, weighs just over two ounces, and is about 180 yards long.  I used my All-Day Lollipop spindle and my Golding Sunbeam spindle to spin this yarn.  I had spun it to make a 2-ply yarn, however, I realized I would not have enough length to knit Susie a Button-Up Neck Warmer.  I then put the singles through on my Cherry Matchless to take out most of the twist, and now I have a bouncy single yarn.  I will cast on with a size 5 needle and see how it looks and go from there.  It will be fun to knit Honey's special yarn into a nice project for Susie.

Honey's Fleece

I have been processing this fleece from a sheep named Honey, who is taken care of by Susie, a coworker of my sister.  Honey is a bit of a wild sheep.  She roams this quiet neighborhood in Michigan and I am combing the bits of fleece Honey left behind that Susie gathered and kindly washed.  There is a staple length of 6 inches after the weak tips break off.  The staple is strong, too, as I can move the table as I draw the sliver through a diz. 

The one disadvantage to combing is that though it gives a very nice fiber to spin, it creates a lot of waste.  I started with just under 7 ounces of fiber and hope to have enough to make Susie a Habitat hat.  I think cables would show up very nicely with this long, lustrous fiber.  I appreciate the opportunity to put all that I have learned in my spinning classes to work and this project is perfect for my Alvin Ramer Super Mini combs.