2016–The Year of Handspun

My collection of handspun yarn has overflowed its basket and taken over the counter beside it. Near the end of 2015, I resolved that 2016 would be the year I knit much more often with my handspun.

Last week, I pulled a couple of skeins out of the basket and sat down with Ravelry to match them with patterns. I wound both of the cakes in the photo above before I realized that they weren’t exactly the same. The large cake is a 3-ply yarn, while the small cake is only 2-ply (I made it from singles left on the bobbins). Oops! I really should have rebalanced my singles to produce more 3-ply. I only had 279 yards, which isn’t that much. Most of those lovely fingering weight shawls use quite a bit more than 279 yards. (Kat, I thought 279 was too little for Honey Cowl… of course, we both thought I had more than that when you suggested it.)

I started to look for one of those “knit until you run out of yarn” patterns. [Is there a name for those? I want a label.] I came up with That Nice Stitch, a free Ravelry download. These photos aren’t stunning because the weather just wasn’t cooperating, but you get the general idea:

As I began knitting, I wasn’t really seeing the colors change much. But once I was done, I realized that the colors shift very gradually – and in a lovely way. You can see it if you look at both sides separately:

I challenge you to find where I grafted the ends together!

So there’s my first handspun project of 2016.

I also have some new handspun yarn to share with you. This is from the November shipment of the Sheepspot Fiber Club – it is Coopworth. Here’s what the roving looked like when I received it:

I spun it longdraw and made a 2-ply yarn. I got 300 yards total (such a nice round number!):

I wound those lovely skeins with my new favorite tool: a skein winder. I haven’t taken a photo of it yet… I’ll try to remember to do that next time. I got it with a Christmas gift and I LOVE IT!

Always open to suggestions for what to make. I think it could make a very handsome November Leaves hat. I’ve already made that pattern 3x, though.