27 posts tagged “spinning”
So this is what I've been doing with the alpaca...
The first five pictures are various combinations of dyed lilac-grey alpaca and black alpaca. Sometimes carded, sometimes blended together, sometimes spun as-is.
The fourth picture has some silk noil spun in - someone from the Bucks spinning, weaving and dyeing guild at the local alpaca farm's open day gave me a little bit of this. I liked spinning the silk noil, but probably not enough to buy more.
The last two pictures relate to the sewing project I haven't yet blogged about (I'll do it after I've given the gift to its recipient). They're spun from leftover bits of sari silk - one just shredded, and the others carded; the darker one is carded with some of the black alpaca, which may well be the eventual destination of all the other bits of leftover sari fabric. I'm sufficiently pleased with the way this worked that there's a piece of drawstring cord in the finished sewing project which I spun from carded bits of leftover fabric. This is probably a bit excessive, except that I didn't have any other cord or yarn which would go, and I'm pleased that this matches perfectly
Ages ago now, I went to Hay-on-Wye with friend-R. I bought second hand books, as you do in Hay (it's a small village in Wales with dozens of second hand book shops), including some vintage knitting books. I bought them for various combinations of because they're funny and because they're useful - one has marvellous mini-stories about Little Johnny and Little Susie* and how they feel about each other, their clothes, and their mother who knit them. Another, while having deeply humourous seventies-ish fashion photography also contains what looks like good and useful advice about designing and adapting patterns, although I confess I haven't read it yet.
What I didn't expect to buy was yarn or fibre, but buy them I did!
The fibre is undyed grey alpaca, the ball of yarn is Trekking XXL sock yarn in a colourway that reminds me of starlings, and the skein is Opal Handpainted sock yarn, bought by R, and intended for socks for her (I think she wants Coriolis socks, but I'm not ready to knit them again yet). I want to use the Trekking for something for me, but I now have serious amounts of sock yarn in the stash, so I should probably get on with knitting some of it. Counting on Ravelry just now, I think I have about twelve pairsworth of sock yarn in my stash, and that's not counting the leftovers which are probably enough for at least another pair. Although I've made good progress on the purple cable cardigan recently, I'm stalled on it again, so maybe I should cast on for some socks in the meantime. The question is which...
The alpaca fibre is still somewhat in limbo, too. I dyed it with two different shades of purple cold water dye, which may have been a mistake because the colour didn't take very well, hence the pastelly shades it's turned out. I like it though, and it feels lovely. I've also supplemented it with a big bag of natural black alpaca from my local alpaca farm! Yes, I have a local alpaca farm. It's in Great Milton, about eight miles away, and their natural black actually mostly is black, unlike the natural black shetland I've spun before. I've been making various sample cards of the two alpacas, which will be the subject of another blog post soon.
*Names may be misremembered.
In the last week, I've had two crafting dates with different groups of women, and I've resurrected two old projects. In the first crafting date, with one knitter, one mender and one, umm, court jester ;-) (R did bring some work with her, but in the end she didn't do any of it), I swatched yet another stranded project, with the leftover Coriolis yarn, which produced a much better swatch than either of my previous stranded attempts. The next day, I cast on for the project.
The second crafting date was with two knitters (Dyddgu and White_hart), one of whom had come to play with my spinning wheel. I gave a mini-spinning lesson (and my student produced a mini-skein of genuine yarn!), learnt the Norwegian purl technique, and talked a lot about knitting as well as about many other subjects. I knitted on the new stranded project, which you can see to the left. This is going to be a slipper rather than a sock, and the swirly pattern is from "Kiehkuralapaset - Swirly Mittens" by goldenknits / AnneL, which I found on Ravelry. I'm really happy with this project so far. The colour contrast is much better than both of the previous attempts, I love the swirly pattern, and I'm really starting to get into the two-handed knitting thing. I even, with benefit of Dyddgu's Norwegian purl lesson, added some short rows on the sole at the base of the toe, to lift the pointed toe up slightly.
Also inspired by the knitterly conversation, I've taken up the purple cable cardigan again, and am making solid progress. For once I seem to be doing quite well on having two projects actively on the go at the same time - this is now nearing the point where I can split off the sleeves, and it will then go much more quickly.
Part of the reason I'm now making progress on this cardigan is that I've finished spinning the yarn for my next purple cardigan, but I am being strict with myself and not casting on until I've finished another one. Three cardigans in progress is too much! And to minimise the chances of me cheating on this, I haven't yet washed and set the yarn, so I can't just cast on on a whim - it'll take a few days of washing and drying first, by which time I might be able to summon up enough sternness to tell myself off ;-)
Yesterday I finished the Coriolis socks, and I love them. They match rather than mirror, because I forgot to read the 'second sock' bits of the instructions, but I don't care.
I used a modified version of Cat Bordhi's modified icord bind off, continuing the stitches from the spiral 'seam' into the icord. It's a bit wasted because the tops curl out, but it seemed the right edging to use - I tried single rib, but it didn't really go with the rest of the sock, and I didn't want a too-fancy edging. I'm wearing them now, and they're very comfy. The spiral does slightly restrict stretch in putting them on, but not too much, and they're fine once on.
In other knitting news, I finished the red mini-cardi and frogged it - the back flared out, and I just didn't like it. I don't know yet what the yarn will be reborn as.
I've also frogged the BMP riverbed socks. There were too many mistakes, and it had been neglected for too long. Their successor is already in swatch, though, so the general plan is still active.
Finally, I've started spinning up some BFL, but I'm planning to write that whole project up in one go, so no more details yet.
Oh, and I've got two knitting/spinning dates coming up in the next few days, so there will probably be more to write about soon.
...Or I might ply it with this similar quantity of pink for scarily bright two ply.
That would be easier - no dyeing required. And would provide more yardage in finished yarn (about 200m).
So that might be the plan instead.
This bright red fibre was part of my planning-to-blend purchase from Texere. I don't much like bright red on its own, but I bought two big bags of colours I do like (purple and burgundy), and lots of little bags of other colours, intending to hand card exciting heathery mixes. I still like the idea of blending, but I don't enjoy hand carding enough to want to do it for large amounts, and I can't justify the money or the space for a drum carder, so I've been working through the small bags (see also the 'Silk cut' and 'Peacock' yarns).
This one I started when I got back from holiday, as a stop-gap sort of spinning project. I need to buy more purple fibre to have enough of the slubby singles to make a cardigan, and I'm planning a dye-spin-knit-socks project with some undyed BFL, but neither of those are ready to go yet, and I was itching to spin (I missed my spinning wheel on holiday). So with no particular aim in mind, and happy to sacrifice the fibre to the spinning urge, I began to spin on my smallest whorl, as practice for the BFL (which I do care about, so will take care to get right). It's not as even as I'd like, and I'm playing around a bit with drafting techniques, but while spinning just now (and listening to my first ever roughly-contemporary and in-order episode of Cast On, since I've just caught up with all the back episodes) I had an idea.
The plan is this: I will spin the lot as singles, then I will overdye it with darker red and possibly purple, to make variegated singles (with short, randomish colour variations so as not to accidentally produce stripy yarn; semi-solid is the aim). Then, depending on how much singles I produce, and how the dyeing turns out, I'll ply it - two, three or navajo depending on which looks like it will work best. Thus will be born yarn that I will like out of fibre that I don't. I hope ;-)
I have turned the heel on the wisteria socks and begun on the leg. Both heels, both legs, because I'm still knitting these in parallel, which seems so far to be an excellent cure for the dreaded Second Sock Syndrome. The cable panel is still mostly indistinct, but it's clearly a different texture, so that's all that matters really.
And I only had to add my last skein (about two-fifths of the total) partway through the heel, so these will still be navajo-ply for a good amount of ankle before I switch to the thicker three-ply for the ribbing.
I'm still really happy with these - they're soft and pretty and I made them! I'm all impatient to finish, and since I'm taking the rest of the weekend off from the Dissertation of Doom, maybe I'll knit these socks instead :-)
I've also been spinning more purple singles - I'm now at nearly 700m, but it's not going to be enough, so I'll have to buy another bag of fibre (oh, the hardship). And then I'll have to start planning a pattern...
The Wisteria socks have about half of a gusset, in the shape of the ridgeline increases from New Pathways, and a small cable panel acting as the ridgeline. I'm actually not wild about the cable - its details don't really show up very well, but it doesn't really matter.
I've exhausted the first ball of yarn, and tied the next one into lots of little bundles so I could work out what was going on with the colour sequence; when I exhaust the other original ball, I'll attach the other end of the bundled ball so I'm knitting both socks from one ball, to maintain something a bit like symmetry without being too wasteful of the yarn. There's one more skein of the navajo ply that's not currently attached to the socks, but it's a big one (about as big as both my two starting skeins together, so that should keep me going into at least a bit of ankle before switching to the three ply.
I now also have new photos of the purple cable cardigan, since I've done a bit more knitting on it. It's actually a bit more cardigan-shaped than it looks in the first photo - it's a bit squished up to fit on the needles.
The second photo is a close up of the cable so far, and the third is a view of the variegated silk of the collar facing. I still really like this cardigan, so I must try to motivate myself to finish it, although it's currently at about the same place as the interminable red cardigan: longer and longer rows, and the split at the underarms feels like centuries away.
But just in case I don't have enough cardigans-in-progress, I've started spinning for another :-) This was inspired by the discovery that one of my favourite bought cardigans - a long, loose, drapey lacey black thing - weighs slightly less than the amount of this purple merino fibre I have in the stash...
This yarn is the first I've spun to be singles - and the first deliberately somewhat varied and slubby in texture - since my first attempts at spinning, and I'm really happy with it. Depending on how much yarn the whole lot of fibre produces, and on design decisions as yet unmade, I might put contrast bands of a different yarn into the cardigan, for example at the wrists and hem. This contrast yarn might be the silk cut. Or might not. Anything is possible ;-)
The top photo is this morning, and the bottom one is about an hour ago, and I haven't actually done much knitting today, but they're going really quickly. I've done some more since I took the photo, and am probably about ready to start the gusset increases.
The stripes are still lining up, just offset by half a repeat, which is better than I deserve, considering I only checked that I was starting on a different colour.
I'm thinking of using the ridgeline increases from New Pathways, with a four-stitch pattern of some sort on the ridge. The pattern will probably be a cable because there aren't many four-stitch patterns, but four stitches means the decreases when I change yarns (and therefore move to bigger needles) will work perfectly with * knit 1, k2tog * - 64 stitches moving to 44, with four stitches in the centre front remaining untouched.
That's Juno Regina to the left, with three diamonds completed. I don't feel as if I've completely bonded with it as a project yet, but it looks pretty, and it's nicely balancing interesting to knit with easy to knit, so I'm tentatively considering it actively in progress...
Which reminds me, how long does it have to be since you've knit anything on a project to count as hibernating (for Ravelry purposes)? I'm very polygamous with my projects - I have [checks] six active projects listed on Ravelry, and two projects I consider to be actually hibernating (the other hibernating ones are either finished but for the sewing in of ends, or due for a good frogging, so they don't count). But one of the active projects (the interminable red cardigan) is something I haven't touched in months [checks] - not since last October - so should it really count as hibernating? And if I designate it as hibernating, will that make me even less likely to do anything to it?
Thinking along these lines has led me to take up the purple cable cardigan in the last few days. I've not done much, which is why there are no new photos of it, but it's sitting in the active-project part of my brain again, which is good. I do like both of these cardigans, so I should make more of an effort to finish them.
All of these good intentions, however, are thwarted somewhat by the fact that in the last few days I have also finished spinning the Wisteria navajo-ply, washed and set the yarn, and now started knitting with it. The navajo-ply (which is just a twisted crochet chain with really big loops) means it's three ply, but with the colour changes intact rather than mixed in together. It looks very different from the corresponding three-ply, but it's very pretty. This was always intended for socks, and now socks it is becoming; I've used Judy's magic cast on, and made a broad and shallow toe, because that's the kind I find most comfortable, and I'm not intending to wear these with shoes so the extra fabric doesn't matter. The yarn is really soft knit up. I was a little worried about its softness in the skein - it feels harsh next to the soft smooshy three-ply, but knit up it's soft and a little fluffy, but feels hardwearing too (I hope!). I'm actually going to cast on the other sock now I've finished the toe, and knit them in parallel, to make them as symmetrical as possible, considering that the yarn isn't all precisely the same weight. It doesn't vary too much (which is a bit surprising, considering bits of it are variously spun and plied on both spindles and the wheel, which was probably foolish of me), but I'm planning to use the tightest-plied skein for the heels for strength, so it's just easier all round if I knit them parallel.
I'm not sure how far up the sock I'll get with the navajo-ply. I think it will be enough for the whole foot, but for very little - if any - ankle. Depending on how far it goes, I'm still planning to knit the leg with the thicker three-ply, just because I want to use the two yarns together for contrast.
I'm really loving how the colours are knitting up. I'm not keen on stripes usually, but perhaps this is like liking a book more once you've studied it - you understand what is going on, so you find new appreciation for things you might not otherwise like in it. I'm itching to knit more of it, and am in fact only writing this blog entry because I'm at female-friend-R's house, taking a break from writing my dissertation, and I don't have my knitting with me :-( If I was working at home today, this break would be a knitting one ;-)
