Persistent Knitter

While knitting merrily along on The Nanny Sweater, I realized my index finger on my right hand was getting quite sore from pushing the left needle down to bring the stitches up near the point.  (The yarn I’m using for TNS doesn’t slide very easily even though I’m using Addi Turbos)   I thought about putting a bandaid on it, but the idea of such a sticky solution didn’t appeal to me.  I had a brief inspiration from my quilting days. Finger Condoms!

The office supply store calls them "finger pads". They come in different sizes so you can find the perfect fit. 

When I’m machine quilting I use one on each thumb and index finger to help give me some "grip" on the quilt as I’m moving it around underneath the sewing machine.   Sometimes I wear them on my middle fingers too during this process.

When hand quilting, I wear one on my right index finger (my thimble will be on my right middle finger) to help pull the needle through all the layers of fabric.

Now, for knitting, I put one on my right index finger, and use that finger to push the left needle down. It’s just thick enough to provide the padding I need; and the holes in it make it very breathable while I’m wearing it. I knit continental style, so it doesn’t affect how I hold my yarn at all (those of you who manipulate your yarn with your right hand might not like this solution as much).  It’s take-off-able so reusable until the rubber on it breaks down so much from pushing on the same spot over and over and over. I doubt that will happen too soon as I bought a set of these finger condoms years and years ago for quilting, and haven’t bought new ones since.

PS. Can anyone guess why I picked this particular time on this particular day to publish my blog entry?

This sweater defies good color quality in the pictures. Bah! Here are the sleeves blocking:

They are done done done!  As soon as I get the front bands knit on, I’ll attach the sleeves and seam up the sides.  Then it will really look like a sweater!

I can’t resist beautiful tools. I went to my LYS to get my spinning wheel bobbins sent in for re-drilling (they don’t spin on the flyer as they should. It’s a known problem), and decided to find a small niddy noddy to use for making samples.  I came home with these two:

The one on the right is tiny, perfect for making little sample skeins.  The other one is the smoothest finish ever, and so beautiful. If you take the ends off of it, it can perform as a Nostepinde - a fancy word for ball-winding-by-hand.  See directions here.

Coming soon to a SOTM club near you:

The pattern will have a few fun things about it, and in general be fairly easy to knit. A great comfy pair of cotton summer socks.

Since going back on this spinning kick - I’ve been making actual yarn!  What it’ll be used for, who knows. It’s all about the process baby!

Top left to bottom right:
* Alice. a corriedale sheep. Navajo Plyed.  That’s a three ply - done using a crochet method.  I was having problems with my wheel (the bobbin wasn’t spinning as it should) and while the yarn seems ok, I think I’ll prefer a softer less "hard" yarn.

* Purple-ish Roving from the LYS spun up into a 2 ply yarn.  This is the one with the slightly tighter plying. I really like how this came out and will attempt to continue spinning some like it.

* Same roving as above, but very loosely plied into a 2 ply yarn.  Ok yarn, I’ll use it somewhere, but I like it plied tighter.

I bet you thought I had forgotten about The Nanny Sweater!

I’ve been plugging away on the sleeves.  It’s going slow as my hands start to hurt if I work on it too long at one time, plus it’s not very portable so the only time I have to work on it is in the evenings after the kids are in bed.

I’m almost done with the sleeves:

I’m doing them at the same time so they come out the same length and the increases are all in the same place without any extra effort. The only bad thing is the two balls of yarn tangle a bit as you turn back and forth.  I did the fronts that way too - and it is the best way to go.

I’ve also reblocked the body again. The cables looked a bit flat from it’s first blocking. This time I was more careful and didn’t stretch anything out, and layed it with the back down, and the fronts on top so they came out the same size. It made the length of it 1" shorter, which is good!  Based on how much the sweater body grew in blocking, I’ll be stopping the sleeves approx 1" short of what the directions say so they don’t turn into huge monkey sleeves.

Given all the fleece I have acquired lately, I really need to spend time washing it.  So today I did three batches of fleece on the stove top. I’ve got my method down fairly well. Here’s the stuff I washed today drying:

I’ve refined my technique a bit from my last posting.

Tools needed:
* 21 quart canning pots (2)
* Kitchen Gloves
* Spaghetti Strainer that is sturdy enough to survive ~ 150 degree water and the weight of 1/2 lb of wet fleece.
* Dawn dish soap
* Lots of hot water

Fill first pot with hot water to 3-4" from top. Set on stove, placing temp at High.  Wait until you can see bubbles rising from the bottom of the pot, but it is NOT boiling.  Squirt about 1/4 cup of dish soap into the pot of water.  Gently place ~approx 1/2 lb of fleece into pot, layer by layer.  Make sure each layer is thoroughly wet before putting the next layer in.  I’ve found I can put about 3 - 3.5 layers in one wash bath.  Turn heat down to medium.

* Fill the next pot with hot water, and place on stove on High.  When the bubbles start to rise, put on the gloves and use the spaghetti strainer to scoop the fleece out of the first pot.  Let water drain back into first pot, and gently press out as much water as you can. Careful - the fleece will be super hot!  As soon as you reasonably have as much water out as you can, carefully open up the fleece to place in the second pot.  The soap really makes it kind of stick together at this point, and you don’t want to agitate it too much. I just try and pull it apart some so it doesn’t go into the 2nd pot as a big clump.  The 2nd and third rinses it opens up even more and this is easier.

Repeat from * until you’ve put the fleece through 3 plain water baths. (The first pot is your soap bath) Depending how dirty your fleece is, your water should be clear and not soapy at this point.  If you find your fleece is too dirty, you might want to do a 2nd soap bath right after the first.  Some people also like the final rinse to contain vinegar. 

Press out as much water from the fleece while in the spaghetti strainer.  Place into a towel, and wrap like a burrito, pressing down to get as much water out as you can. When that towel is soaked through - repeat with a dry towel. Spread out in a thin layer on a sweater dryer in a warm, dry area.

If you want to do multiple batches of fleece - don’t toss out the very final rinse water from the first batch.  Save it and put soap in it to wash the second batch of fleece.  It’s already hot - it’s fairly clean and you’ll save a couple of gallons of water, plus the time of heating the first pot of water.

This technique is super slow. It takes me about 1.5 hours to do 1/2 lb of fleece.  It works really well though!  There is little to no lanolin or dirt left in the fleece.  Veggie Matter will still be present, although some of it might have floated out in the water baths.

My lack of blog content means I have to post pictures of other people’s progress.  My mom has managed to get this far on her navajo weaving. She’s learning as she goes, and is doing a great job!

Given that I’ve got a large amount of unwashed (translation: kinda stinky) fleece now; I am working on getting it clean.  After consulting with my friends who are much more knowledgeable about fleece washing than I am, I decided to go this route, at least to start:

Huge pots.  These each hold 21 quarts of water.  The largest pan I had before this was probably in the 8 quart range. Works great for spaghetti - but not fleece!

Fill with hot water, set on stove til almost boiling (but not quite), turn down heat some, and soak fleece for about 20 mins.  Don’t forget to add dish soap with the first washing or two.  Two pots because it’s good to transfer the hot fleece to more hot water, rather than letting the fleece cool off and then waiting for the water to heat up again in the same pot.  Thanks to Rebecca for walking me through the process, so I didn’t mess it up :)

One of my problems when washing fleece is where to let it dry? I’ve got
cats, dogs and kids; so there aren’t very many places for me to take
over that aren’t already occupied.  I’ve solved this problem by finding
these stackable sweater dryers and putting them in my overly large
master bedroom closet.  (The top layer has 1/2 pound of fleece, the bottom layer slightly less. This is the culmination of two nights of cookin’ fleece)

Since my yarn stash is also in this closet, I’m motivating the fleece to become yarn by placing them right next to each other.

Going with the we’re-not-talking-about-knitting-this-week theme:

My mom visited last weekend (and was present for the happy fleece buying), and she brought along her
small Navajo Weaving Loom, with project in process.  Here I am trying to figure out what it all means:

She was working on it without any sort of pattern except a fuzzy printout of a design she liked from a website picture. I decided to bring her Navajo weaving into the current decade and helped her create  a graph in MS Excel to follow.  A lot like a cross stitch chart, but for weaving.  I’m hoping she’ll send me a picture of it when it’s got a full repeat on the loom.  She’s using the small loom as a sampler for her larger project, which is less portable.  When she left to go back home, she had about 1/3 of a repeat done and it looked really good!  Can’t wait to see the full size rug, it’s going to be very impressive.