Persistent Knitter

A lot of fellow knit-bloggers have been blogging about a new type of cool knitting bag. If wasn’t originally designed to be a knitting bag; but it definately has become one.  After seeing it for the 4th or 5th time, I couldn’t resist* anymore.

I thought it would be nice to use a smaller bag than my backpack on the way to and from work on the bus.  Some of the bags I’ve made to hold knitting are too nice and not as durable as I’d like for day to day travel.  I ordered it on ebags (they had a free shipping offer), and it arrived today (4 days early I might add). Well, it’s a bit bigger than I expected.  Here it is sitting next to the backpack it would have replaced:

Hm. Not exactly "small" is it?  They do give measurements on the website; but it’s always hard to tell how big something really will be. I guess I should have measured my backpack first to see how big it was!  (The colors in the photo are a tad bit off. Backpack is red, and the bag is a "Cinnamon" color which does have a lot of orange in it)

I’m not too unhappy - this bag is large enough to hold a sweater in progress. In the picture the backpack is leaning against the couch, but the new bag isn’t.  The whole inside of the walls of the bag are lined with pockets. Perfect for storing your knitting pattern, and Storage Containers in, leaving the center of the bag free to hold yarn and the knitting project.   I’m definately going to order a smaller one though - I’m hooked!

The other bonus with this bag - it has an anvil on it.  Knit Foundry anyone?  :)

*I have a thing about bags. I love different bags and containers. It’s garnered me quite a collection!

I suppose it’s hard to say it followed me when the postman is the one who brought it.   I came home today to find this yummy pile waiting for me:

Ordered from Chameleon Colorworks, Each chain is 4oz of BFL (Blue Faced Leicester). Iris on top and Hyacinth on the bottom.  It’s always a gamble when you order colors based on what you see on your monitor.  Overall I’m very pleased.  The fiber feels soft and I can still see crimp in the roving; so it should be very nice to spin, which is really the point. 

As for colors - The Hyacinth has the colors I expected, although I wish it had a bit less of the green in it as I think it’d balance better with more blue and purple in it.  Lucikly since I’m spinning it I can take some of the green out if I want to. The other one was more of a surprise; and more two tone than I expected.  Looking back at the website; both match fairly well what I saw there; although the Iris showed more variation in the website picture, and I was amazed at how deep the colors are.

It’ll be a bit of time before I can get to spinning these; I still have to ply up my first set of purple merino/cashmere and I’ve got another batt of sheep to shawl warp to spin up.

It’s raining sock pictures! My mom is re-learning how to knit after quite a long break (try about 20+ years). She is cutting her teeth on a sock.  (yes, we both are crazy and it does run in the family) . she chose a sock pattern I wrote (so she could call and ask me for help when she got stuck, althought= I would have helped her either way).  The pattern is inside-outside socks (available at theknitter.com), a pattern that is completely reversable; you can wear them inside out and you can barely tell the difference.   Here is her first sock:

Looks pretty good doesn’t it!?  The heel is a short row garter heel, and she did have to rip it out once to redo it; but I think it looks great. The yarn is a wonderful color too!

I finished weaving in the ends on a pair of socks today:

The sock top is a bit blurry in the pic, and the coloring in the yarn makes it hard to see that it’s a lace pattern.  This is the design for theknitter.com’s Sock of The Month club next month (or the month after).  It’s a great pattern to knit up - it goes really fast; and they are going to be super comfortable to wear.

I started a new pair of socks today - one that I’m designing. It’s a question if the pattern I want to do will work out in the yarn I have, but I’m hoping it will. If it doesn’t, I’ll save that pattern for a different yarn and choose something else for this particular yarn. Pictures to come when I get further than a boring 1×1 ribbing.

We’re getting underway with preparation for Sheep to Shawl. At this point it consists of having woven a sample; and now spinning the warp yarn.  We are using a beautiful grey fleece for the warp. We drum carded it in order to get a more consistent color. Two passes through the drum carder did the trick and gave us batts of about 1 ounce each.  Here you can see us all spread out:

We had separated the fleece by color. Dark (which we didn’t use at all), Medium and Light. We tried to intersperse the light and dark while we were carding.   So far it’s working quite well and the yarn is a nice grey color:

This is just the very start of my bobbin. (The brown peeking through in the middle is my leader). The bobbin is now about half full a few days later. 

It’s very different spinning a recently shorn fine fleece with very little processing versus a prepared roving.  There is so much bounce in the fleece vs the deadness of prepared roving.  Using a carded batt is different too. I spend a bit of time picking out some noils and uncarded bits.  The next fleece I drum card I will pay a bit of attention to how I’m feeding it in to the carder to see if I can avoid those uncarded bits more.

Off to spin some more!

I have pictures to post - but woefully little time to post them.  I did run across a blog today that had some great looking entries on lace knitting. Fabulous pictures. The lessons start here:
http://www.eunnyjang.com/knit/2006/03/majoring_in_lace_introduction_1.html

ANd for a fab pattern that this person created, knit and wrote up, check this out:
http://www.eunnyjang.com/images/knit/0511joycesscarf/stole_print_o_the_wave.pdf

Gorgeous. Just gorgeous.

I stumbled across a very interesting blog post on yarn purchases and why/how we buy:

http://nanasadiesplace.blogspot.com/2006/04/yarn-focus-challenge-voluntary.html

I think I fall into the category of "ooh-pretty-I want it-Buy it-take it home-put it in stash" very nicely. Over the past year, as I see how many bins my stash occupies I’ve been really trying to think about what I buy and why.  I’ve become a bit more project focused. I used to buy sock yarn at the drop of a hat. I don’t do that anymore; but some sock yarn has made it home with me, and has been made into socks.

Recently my downfall has been roving. Which is really just a nice way of saying pre-yarn. Eventually this roving will make it’s way into my stash as yarn.  Sometimes I get asked, "What are you going to make out of that roving?" My answer is always "yarn".  Sometimes I buy enough to make a whole sweater. Most times it’s only 8oz of roving so I can spin it and enjoy it. Hopefully it will turn into something useful later on.  I have done well lately because every yarn purchase has had a specific project in mind.  Now, the problem is that I have three sweaters (for myself!) all planned; but have only been able to swatch for them.  I’m trying to finish what is currently in the knitting bag:

• Test knitting for Sock of the Month at theknitter.com On sock #2 already. This should go fast
• Toddler sweater for an as of yet unplanned welcome-new-baby party.

Planned out:

• GoL lace sweater. Swatch made. Waiting to be cast on (Yarn was purchased for this)
• The Debbie Cable/Aran Sweater. Swatch made. Yarn on back order
• Lace sweater from a Dale book. Yarn from Stash (!). Swatch needed
• Kilimanjaro Kat Shawl with the Alpaca/Silk yarn I just bought yesterday

Guilt Projects (defined as projects that have been started, but not yet finished, and are currently in an unknown location in the stash)

• Lacy scarf made of Misty Alpaca lace weight.  I’m a few inches in on this; but it was difficult bus knitting
• Fair Isle Cow/Sheep/Pig sweater for my son. I forget why this got put aside. Body was halfway done. It’s totally cute, and fun to knit. He won’t wear it until next winter though given current temps.  Gotta pull it out and make sure it’ll still fit him next winter.
• Kitchen towels being woven. I’m on towel #2 of 6. Loom is in basement, where it’s totally inconvenient and boring to be. Maybe we should do some moving watching for a few nights so I can weave while we watch the movies.
• Other stuff that is so old, I can’t even remember what/where it is.

I have however managed to complete a few small projects in the meantime - a few hats for the kids. the Christmas Scarf for Katie (which she was wearing as a belt last night), Gloves for myself that turned out too big, but I love them anyway. And let’s not forget the sweater I finished for my mom!

I have been in a knitting slump lately; but I am feeling re-energized and excited to be working on the things I have planned. Hopefully I can get a little done on the guilt projects too, to make more room for new projects.

My mom has been doing a lot of wood working lately. After picking up spinning (yet another hobby), she decided she wanted to make her own niddy noddy since she didn’t like many of the options out there. Here is her first attempt, needless to say I’ve already put in a request for one!

With yarn (I assume that’s her handspun, she didn’t really tell me):

I stumbled across this very informative website today:
http://www.hjsstudio.com/lowtwist.html

Given how much I’ve been spinning lately; I find it really fascinating. I’ve heard about the book she mentions, "Spinning for Softness and Speed" by Paula Simmons, but don’t know if it’s worth the $40+ I’d have to pay to get it these days.

I aquired a bit* of roving recently, and have been spending a fair bit of time spinning. I’ve got 1.5 bobbins full, which is only half of what I need to make yarn. I’m going to be making a three ply yarn. Here’s a shot of the first bobbin, partially filled:

And the same bobbin, a day or so later:

Color in the 2nd picture is more true. It’s a nice dark purple yarn with flecks of red and blue in it.  I use a WooLee winder on my wheel and LOOOVE it. I managed to get about 2.5 ounces of singles onto just one bobbin. I probably could have filled it more; but chose to move on to an emtpy bobbin instead.

You may notice that the bobbin is slightly more filled on the right side (that’s the front side).  The idea with the WooLee winder is that a little gadget on one side of the flyer moves back and forth automatically as you wind on, so you get a perfectly smooth layer of yarn. It’s SO nice to not have to stop and switch hooks or move the hook while spinning.  My bobbins were filling more on the front than on the back though - so I emailed Nathan about it; and he suggested a small tweak to the loop that feeds the yarn onto the bobbin.  I have done so, and will see if it’s helping as I fill my next bobbin. I think it’s still a bit thicker on the front; but if it is slightly less so, I’ll be happy. Either way, I love this tool! It’s awesome for plying yarn, you don’t have to stop at all until you realize you’ve been spinning solid for an hour!

——-
*a bit = 2 pounds

After a bit of deliberation, a test swatch in one yarn for one pattern, the same pattern, different yarn. I’ve decided to do the cabled sweater in Cascade 220. The color I found was just too amazing to use anything else.  I ordered it, but of course it’s on back order!  Here is the beginning of a swatch, which while it isn’t very far into it, it was enough to tell me i loved it in this yarn. My st.st. gauge matches what the pattern calls for, so it might even be in the realm of close when I actually make the sweater:

For now I will proceed to working on my lacy sweater from Gathering of Lace (hereafter abbreviated at GoL):

This yarn is wonderful to work with. It’s fingering weight, which means LOTS of stitches to cast on; but it’s wonderful to knit with. the swatch actually has two patterns on it. The bottom few inches has one from a Dale book; I decided that it looked nice, but I wanted to try the other pattern first. That’s on top and if you look closely you can see two sets of cables, one on each side. I really really like how this looks and feels - so this is the clear winner. The other pattern might work for the stashed Rowan yarn I’ve got. If I manage to get this lace sweater done before the cascade shows up and before it gets cold again, I’ll start on that. (now, no fair coming back to me in August and saying, "But you said you’d work on THIS!". I can retract my knitting order at any time. :)

(Oh yes, I also measured my gauge on this one. Sort of. I didn’t wash it. I just smoothed it out over my leg, and guestimated. it’s pretty durned close. It’s a ribbed pattern so there’s a bit of give in the final measurements)

Stay tuned for some riveting shots of my spinning wheel and bobbin tomorrow.