8 posts tagged “wisteria”

The wisteria socks are finished. I've renamed them 'dissertation socks', because the spinning and the knitting of these has been very much bound up with the dissertation I've been writing since the beginning of the year, and because I finished them yesterday, on deadline day (having handed in two days earlier). I'm wearing them as I type, and am enjoying them greatly - I do really like the contrast between the two yarns (thicker three ply in the cuffs, thinner navajo ply in the main sock), and I don't care that the stripe sequence somehow realigned itself during the heel.

And now I'm going on holiday for a week, and need to decide on holiday knitting to take with me. The purple cable cardigan is going, although I don't know how much of it I'll do - it's a bit big for role-playing knitting (I henceforth coin an acronym: RPK). And Juno isn't too big, but is too chart-following. I'm taking it, but I probably won't knit it in-game.

The obvious solution is to start a new project! I am going to knit socks (Bartholomew's tantalising socks, to be precise) for the GM, which might make him feel more kindly towards me knitting in session, and is bound to mean I get all kinds of GM favours. So I've told him, anyway ;-)

So three holiday projects - two largeish ones that I've already started but still have loads to go, and one new one which could itself easily occupy me for the week and is small and simple enough for RPK. Hooray for holidays!

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 ;-)

...And the equivalent quick update from the spinning front!

The top picture is the second batch of Wisteria fibre that's destined for navajo plying. It's about 300m, which means I'm still on track to product at least 200m of possibly-sock-weight three-ply. I'm itching to ply it, but navajo works better if the singles have relaxed a bit, so I am resisting the urge.

The second picture is my skein of spinning oddballs :-) I have a long-term wip which I've mentioned before, of a scrap scarf made from all the remnants of my commercial yarn; I decided early on in my spinning that I didn't want to absorb my handspun remnants into that scrap project, but would make a separate one. The new Knitty has some stash-busting remnant ideas, which reminded me to get on with sorting out my spinning remnants, so I skeined it up yesterday, and was surprised that it comes to about 100m! And it's really pretty. It's currently one of the 'pet' skeins sitting on my desk to be stroked every now and again, and it's made me realise properly that I love all of my spinning, even my crappy beginner efforts. I don't feel quite the same about my knitting - I feel attached to all of it, but I don't feel uniformly positive about all of it, possibly because it's now finished, and has to be judged on how well it is performing its function. My handspun yarn, on the other hand, is still en route to its finished state (since I assume I'll eventually get round to knitting with most of it), so there are no disappointments to detract from my love for it. I can see flaws in some, of course, but I love every little bit of it anyway.

The second and third pics are singles from Texere's cerise merino, about 224m/50g, which I spun on one of the new whorls offered by my new flyer (bottom picture). The second picture is just before I twisted the skein into, well, a skein, and I just loved how it all curled up like that :-)

The fourth pic is of the same skein, sitting on top of the silk hankies which I will probably ply some of it with. The hankies probably won't make as much yardage as the wool (I got about 150m from the other pack of hankies), so I'll have to think a bit more about it. Maybe I'll keep it as singles, and just knit it in a project with the silk, or maybe I'll ply them (like the lilac 'silk cut' yarn), and put the leftover singles into the next skein of oddball. Not sure yet.

Finally, as mentioned above, my new flyer. I'm pretty certain now that my wheel is an Ashford Traditional (from the 1970s - about the same age as me!), and since my existing flyer had only one whorl (ie only one speed at which the flyer moves relative to the wheel), I splashed out on a replacement flyer with three - three! - whorls (whorls are the circles-with-groves at the left of the picture - the drive band (piece of string) is wrapped around the middle one in the pic). What this means is that I can spin with more twist (for finer yarn), without having to vary the treadling speed. This is a good thing, because there's a speed of treadling that is most comfortable, and controlling twist by speeding up is annoying and tiring. And since this (relatively cheap) addition works, that means I can plan for later, more expensive, additions, like a lace flyer unit which provides more - and smaller - whorls, ie higher ratios and allow for even finer yarn.

I've spun five-eights of the Wisteria fibre (from Freyalyn on Etsy). Four of those eighths (ie 100g) are wheelspun with a long draw (my first attempt at same), and then wheel-plied into lovely soft squooshy aran-ish three-ply, about 100m thereof (top picture). The leftovers from the three-ply made about 12m of two-ply (second picture) with a similar effect; not enough to do anything with, but I must admit to wearing it around my wrist and admiring it ;-) The two- and three-ply are both plied from non-matching singles, to blend and mix the colours, and I really like the effect. In fact, I like the effect so much that I nearly backed out of my plan to navajo-ply the remaining 100g...

I've spun a quarter of the remainder so far (the singles are in progress in the third picture). Spindle-spun, to make it as fine as I can, and getting fairly even laceweight singles. Impatiently, instead of leaving that 25g on the spindle and attaching the second 25g (I only split it in the first place because the length of roving was too long to be manageable), I wound it onto the swift, turned it into a ball and went straight ahead with navajo-plying, to produce the bottom picture. The colours are stronger and less muted than the thicker wheelspun yarn, and I really like them this way too :-) I should get something like 200m of something only slightly thicker than bought sock yarn out of this. 

The Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook has been making me think about contrasting yarn from the same starting point - the three-ply aran and the navajo-ply sock are spun from the same fibre but using different tools and techniques, and they look quite different; I'd love to see how they look together. The tentative plan here is to knit toe-up indoor socks from the whole lot. Knit the foot from the fine navajo-ply yarn, with its strong colours and clear colour changes, and then switch to the squooshy aran - more muted colours and more soft and cuddly - for the leg (making appropriate adjustments to stitch count and needle size). I guess it's kind of an in-joke-for-one - the point of the plan is to compare and contrast the two different yarns, and the audience for whom the experiment is intended is just me (I don't know any other spinners). But the colours are so beautiful that it can't help but look pretty :-)

This is the result of the Caribbean fibre I bought from Freyalyn's Etsy shop :-)

It's two-ply, about 324m and about 200g. Unfortunately (for me), I chose this to make for Katie, who gave me my wheel - I checked that she knits when she gave me it, and promised to spin her something. It's lovely and I wish I was keeping it, so I hope she likes it! Haven't yet figured out how to deliver it, since I don't want to do it in person.

The first two skeins (one and three in the picture) are more blended and less candy-striped than the second two, which is noticeable to me, but I don't think it's too bad, and it taught me some things about how to treat colour, which I'm considering with my current spinning project, which is the Wisteria colourway from the same dyer. 

In other spinning news, my Amazon package finally arrived yesterday, with two new spinning books in it. Hands On Spinning is more basic than I was hoping - large chunks of it deal with things I've more-or-less taught myself already - but does feature useful discussion of drafting methods, one of which - long draw - I've put into practice with the Wisteria.

Talking of the Wisteria, here it is, fibre and two bobbins of singles. It's lovely :-) When I've spun the remaining fibre, I'll three-ply it and probably make socks - it'll be a bit thicker than fingering, I think, but I'm hoping it will work for around-the-house socks anyway. Of course, I reserve the right to see the finished yarn and completely change my mind and do something else with it, or just keep it around to stroke.

Depending on how this lot (which is 100g, half my supply of this fibre) works out, I might navajo-ply the other lot. I'm not especially keen on stripes in general, but I'm interested in the technique, and I'm interested in comparing what the two different yarns from the same fibre look like. I might even knit them in the same thing as an interesting experiment in colour. This thought, and indeed much of how I'm thinking about the colours in this fibre, is influenced by the Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook, which I've been flipping through. I haven't read all of it yet, and I think it's going to be mostly inspirational rather than instructional, but it's got me thinking about things to do with colour. And it's very pretty indeed - lots of good photos. It hasn't toppled the crown of New Pathways as my favourite sock book, but I'm glad to have it.