Polworth, Plied

Last weekend I got excited about my new sock yarn spinning project.  But as I thought ahead, I realized that I needed to clear some bobbins before proceeding much further.  I only have 4 bobbins for my Ladybug (someone asked me why I don’t just buy more – I may someday, but they are $36 each…).  The first singles for the new sock yarn were on one bobbin.  Another had the first half of the golden Polworth I spun on the spindle (I had to clear the spindle to spin the other half).  Another had some leftover singles from the purple 2-ply merino silk.  And the final bobbin was empty.

But… I need singles on 3 bobbins and a 4th empty bobbin on which to ply. 

So I returned my attention to the gold stuff.  I finished spinning it on the spindle at Knit Night on Wednesday.  Then I quickly ran it through the wheel (not adding too much twist, I hope) to get it onto a bobbin so I can ply it on the wheel.  I used this fancy shoe box contraption to hold the spindle: Then I realized…OOPS!  I just used my last empty bobbin. 

So I ended up hand winding the purple singles onto a short length of PVC pipe that I use as part of my homemade niddy noddy (boosted from my kids’ box of PVC fun – they build things out of it – think Tinker Toys).  Then I slid the PVC pipe onto my kate, and reminded myself how to Navajo ply.  Thank goodness for YouTube!  This time I used this video, which is very clear and just what I needed.  (Navajo ply is a chain ply technique that allows you to make a 3-ply yarn from singles on one bobbin – great way to use up those leftover bits of singles because you can use every last inch.)

I got another 33.5 yards of this pretty merino-silk and cleared my bobbin. I love how round the 3-ply yarn is compared to the 2-ply.  See the difference? 3-ply is on the left; 2-ply is on the right.  I might have to use this technique for an entire batch of singles sometime soon.  (But not the new 3-ply sock yarn, because I understand that the chain ply doesn’t work so well with certain long and/or wiry fibers, and mohair is one of them.)

Once I cleared that bobbin, I plied the gold stuff into this 2-ply yarn.  I go 259 yards out of 101 g: I had a tiny bit of singles left on one bobbin, which I promptly navajo-plied, and got so little it wasn’t even worth winding up.

Now I can proceed with the sock yarn.

I’m not unhappy with the gold stuff, but it’s somehow different from the yarn I spin entirely on the wheel.  Maybe the twist on my spindle-spun singles was less consistent?  I’m not sure.  The Polworth top was sooooo buttery and the yarn is less so.  It’s not rough and rustic, exactly, but nor is it buttery soft.  Learning curve is still on the way up, I guess!  (Spinners, speak up if you have wisdom on this, please.)

Camp Fiber

I finally finished spinning the first half of my 4 oz of Polworth top.  I haven’t been using a reference card or anything to help with consistency, and I have a feeling that the last bit I spun was thicker than the first bit (because the spindle was getting heavier).  We shall see when it is plied.  Supposedly you can spin as much fiber as the weight of the spindle, but that seems like a lot to me.  This is about 2 oz of fiber on a 4 oz spindle:I’ll wind that off onto a piece of PVC pipe I brought with me before beginning the next half.  The grey sock is on its 3rd iteration.  I decided that I wasn’t happy with the way the 2x2 rib transitioned into the stitch pattern.  I took a 1-hour ribbing class with Cookie A at Sock Summit about exactly this, so I couldn’t stand not getting that right on one of her designs (her pattern calls for a picot edge, which I don’t think would be right with such a rustic yarn, so I’m substituting a ribbed edge).  I also decided to make the ribbed cuff part much deeper, since I have plenty of yarn (5 oz).  So that photo shows a Cauchy sock with a deep ribbed cuff plus 1 22-round pattern repeat.  When I do sock #2, I’ll modify the ribbing again – I should have planned to put the decreases in the purl stitches rather than the knit ones.  I think they would disappear better.  Knit and learn, right?

The grey sock is kind of bulky.  You may not be able to tell from that photo above, but the grey yarn cake is supersized and not so portable.  So I started my backup project to work on during the camping portion of our trip.  I’m doing a stitch pattern from the Vogue Stitchionary with some Socks that Rock Lightweight from stash (colorway Love-in-idleness).  It’s pooling a bit, but the colors are still lovely:

We have been camping the last 2 nights (one more to go) and it has been rather rainy here, off and on.  Luckily, we hung a tarp over our picnic table, which makes a dryish place to hang out while it rains (other than the tent, which is super steamy here in the humid South).  I popped into the Earth Guild in Asheville while we were there and Boy 1 seemed excited about the potholder loom – so of course we got it:The “deluxe” kit comes with enough loops to make six potholders.  Boy 1 made the first one with random loops.  Then S1 made one with a gradiating color pattern.  Then Boy 1 started another one with a different pattern.  Need a potholder?  We’re in production mode.

We lucked out and were in Asheville the day of The Big Crafty festival.  We had such a great time browsing the booths and getting inspired.  The building that some of the booths were in also housed a children’s museum, which we got free admission to with our Whitaker Center membership, so that worked out great – one parent stayed with the kids in the museum while the other shopped, and then we traded.  The Big Crafty is the kind of craft fair where you can buy things like vegan cupcakes and beer.  A great scene.  We got some fun things to remember our visit there.

My turn on the internet is coming to a close, so I’ll yield the netbook.  See you soon!

OBX stripes (or, FO: Beachy Felici)

Finished the Beachy Felicis today!  These were a quick knit with only 48 stitches around and speedy stockinette.  A short row heel probably would have been more attractive with the striping yarn, but I don’t have that construction memorized and I didn’t have notes with me.  These are done – and I only used 1 ball of yarn (so I have a spare).

I’ve been spinning the Polworth top on my spindle.  I know that seeing singles pile up on a spindle isn’t super exciting, but here’s how it looks now: I started a pair of socks with Jacob sock yarn, which is a little thicker than fingering.  I’m using 2.25 mm needles.  The stitch pattern is a 10-stitch repeat and the cast-on number is 60 – but this thick yarn made the sock too big so I backed down to 50.  We’ll see how this works out. Today Boy 1 and I climbed the tallest brick lighthouse in the world – Hatteras Island Lighthouse.  It’s 12 stories tall.  Great view at the top!One last shot of Beachy Felici (I just like saying that):

A quickie

I got my Felici yarn order last week and immediately pulled out the Positively Pink yarn to make a pair (a PAIR, not a trio) of socks for a little girl I’ll be seeing this weekend.  They went so fast that I’m now done!  This isn’t the greatest photo in the world (I think this particular sockitecture looks best on feet) but you can see that (a) they are done and (b) they match perfectly.  I think this will please the little miss. I wanted the stripes to continue perfectly down the front of the sock, so I elected NOT to do my typical favorite flap-style heel.  Even a shortrow heel worked between the leg and the foot would interrupt the striping.  Instead, I made an afterthought heel.  I started at the cuff and knit a tube until it was time for the heel.  Then I knit half the total # of stitches onto a piece of waste yarn, dropped the waste yarn, and resumed knitting in the round.  Here is a shot of sock #2, sans heel, before I went to knitting group last night: Then I just picked up the stitches with 2 circular needles, pulled out the waste yarn, and knit the heel using the exact same structure that I used for this toe.  I kitchenered the last heel stitches at the very end.

I’m pleased with the results, though I want to fiddle with the technique a little to better avoid little gaps at the gussets like this one: I picked up an extra stitch at each side of the heel opening and knitted that stitch through the back loop, which helped but didn’t totally eliminate this.  The hole pictured above is on sock #1 and I’m happy to report that this looks better on sock #2.

Look how perfectly the stripes lined up on the fronts!This pair came in at under 1 ball of yarn.  Now I have another ball for something else. 

After I finished that off at knitting group last night, I got my spindle out again.  I have fallen off the 15-minutes-a-day plan since finishing the first batch of yarn, and it was high time I got back on the wagon.  I grabbed some dyed Polworth roving I got at MDSW earlier this month and divided the 4 oz on half.  I took 2 oz with me and started spinning.  Here is how far I got: When I finish this 2 oz, I’ll wind off and spin the other 2 oz, then ply.  I love this rich mustardy color, which is labelled “Sand Pebbles”:

Possum, Clown, Balls

I finished the possum socks this week:

I’m really happy with the way the reversed spiraling came out.  I also reversed the spiral direction on the star toe decrease.  I tried using the K2togtbl decrease on these, and have decided for sure to avoid it.  It is easy and fun to execute, but leaves a decidedly unstraight decrease line: I also didn’t notice until now that these socks don’t really match in terms of color!  I guess you run this risk when you work with hand-dyed yarns.  I didn’t personally select these 2 skeins because I ordered them online.  I don’t know if a better match between the 2 skeins would have been possible if I’d eyeballed the selection myself (and I bought this yarn years ago).  Still, it’s a little annoying.  And a reminder of a benefit of working with 1 100-gram hank of hand-dyed yarn rather than 2 50-gram hanks/balls/whatever.

I’ve also been spinning this week.  I’ve done pretty well at practicing with my drop spindle every day.  I spun every day this week except one, a day in which I didn’t get home until after 9 pm and was too tired to do anything else (but also the same day when I had lots of good meeting knitting and finished the possum socks).  I finished up that bit of clownish rainbow fluff and plied it on the spindle to get this:It’s cute!  A tiny mini-hank of only 31 yards and 11 grams: Boy 2 really likes this, so I will knit it into some “superhero cuffs” for him.  (Just wait. You’ll see.)

When I started my Deck the Ball using leftover possum yarn, I realized I never showed you the last 2 balls.  Just to prove I’ve been on track with that weird little resolution, here they are: The top one is yarn from Night Gulls and the bottom one is yarn from Yum Yum Waffle Socks.

And just for fun, here’s the warts-and-all zoom out that shows our studio looking pretty much like normal!

Spindle Spinning with Maggie

Today I took a drop spindle class with spinning teacher extraordinaire, Maggie Casey.  It was great!

We started with what seemed like a very heavy spindle to me, the Schacht 3 oz model. We worked with some Cormo roving.  Cormo is a fine wool breed, but this particular fiber hadn’t been processed ideally and it was full of nepps and veg.  This made it “stickier” and a little easier for beginners to spin without dropping the drop spindle so often (yes, that’s why it’s called that).  Then we moved on to some nicer stuff, which we spun in 2 batches and then plied.  FINALLY I know how to proceed with plying spindle-spun yarn!  It didn’t occur to me to start taking pictures until we started working with our third fiber of the day, the Louet Northern Lights top.  The preparation is quite thin (not pencil thin, though) and space-dyed so there are short spans of color:It looked awfully bright to me (a classmate used the term “rainbow barf”), but once spun, it tones down quite a bit.  Here are some singles on my spindle:  And here is some plied yarn on the spindle (2-ply): We used a shoe box and a clothespin to turn the spindle into a bobbin (the clothespin is on the spindle hook, keeping it from escaping the box):  We wound the singles onto those little rubber balls and then plied off the rubber balls onto the spindle again.  Interesting! 

Here are my products of the day.  The white stuff is the singles that we spun first and then abandoned.  The purpley-brown stuff is our first plied yarn.  The the tiny skein at the bottom is the Northern Lights stuff.  I only had a few minutes to start playing with another type of dyed roving, which you can see here.  Believe me, it looks better spun up than not!  And maybe you noticed that I asked Maggie to sign my spindle (since I forgot to bring my copy of her book to sign)… good geeky fiber fun.  (Also not my idea – I copied someone else!)

Here is the master at work, demonstrating spinning with a supported spindle.  See the little cup at the bottom?  This spindle spun finer yarn than I’ve ever seen before.  I wish I had a picture to show you.  It made everything else look like rope. I know I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: I’m going to start training with my spindle.  15 minutes a day for 3 weeks.  Then we’ll see how comfortable I am with it.  Thanks, Maggie, for giving me some spindle mojo!

Progress Report

There has been relatively little blogging lately due to holiday preparations and general busy-ness!  But there has been some knitting.  Here’s my update:

Big news first: Sharon’s Bada Bing sweater is done.  I had to rip out the neck and redo it because following the same seed stitch pattern I used at the waist just didn’t look right.  I did a standard stockinette stitch neckband and used Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off (JSSBO), and it looks pretty good.  Also, does anyone remember that this was supposed to be a v-neck?  I followed the more conservative v-neck instructions (for a less plunge-ful version) but it turned out to be a conservative scoop neck instead.  Well, live and learn!  I also had to rip out the sleeve cuffs because somehow, even after much measuring and fitting, the sleeves were several inches too short.  When I redid them, I followed the same edge pattern that I used on the neck.  The cuffs roll up a bit right now.  We might be able to make them behave by blocking – or we might not.  She doesn’t mind the rolling so I’m calling it done.  I’m terrified the whole thing will change size in the wash so we’re just not thinking about that right now.

I also finished this pair of socks, which is very plain (mostly stockinette) except for the arch shaping on the foot.  Look carefully – do you see the unusual lines running around the side and to the top of the foot near the toe?  This is a very interesting construction, and I cast on for another sock that uses it right away: Ahhh, Knit Picks Felici sock yarn.  I love you so.  This self-striping yarn will be perfect for a relatively simple sock (just the unusual arch shaping to content with, but it’s my second time with the pattern) to knit on my journey to Texas.  The colors are so warm and cheery – but not too dark.  Dark yarn is always difficult to see but especially so when traveling.  I think the person who picked Knit Picks circular needle cable color designed this Felici colorway – they coordinate perfectly!

I planned to knit Amy King’s Guernsey Socks pattern (from The Knitter’s Book of Yarn) using the 100% Icelandic yarn I got at Knitters’ Day Out last September.  I wound the yarn and did some swatching at knitting group on Wednesday.  I don’t think it’s going to work out.  Perhaps not at all, but definitely not for travel knitting.  So I’m putting aside that pretty grey yarn (for now) and I wound up this Wollmeise that I won in a Loopy Ewe contest a while back.  Sharon says she is always wishing she had red socks in a more pinky-red rather than orangey-red, and this yarn fits the bill.  I will reknit a simple pattern that I’ve done before with this yarn – remember my green zebra socks?  Charade is the official name of the pattern.

So that is 2 sock projects for the trip.  The other thing I decided to take is my spindle and some fiber.  Now that the holiday knitting is done, I want to focus more on spinning.  I know I need to log 15-30 minutes a day with the spindle to develop the fine muscle control I need to become natural at this, and I thought the vacation might be just the time to start my new exercise regimen. And now, we just hope that the snowstorm headed this way doesn’t delay our flight out.  I’ll be knitting my stress away!

Spin Me Right Round

So here are my little skeins of handspun, my very first ones. I finished plying over the weekend (note to self: investigate lazy kates with tension). This is how my kids line up their treasures (which, depending on the day, might be train engines, or Kapla blocks, or dice, or little plastic rocket ships, or any number of precious items). Don't you just want to squeeze them? I have about 215 yards in all (but really, I have 175 yards of 2-ply and nearly 40 yards of 3-ply). I might not want to mix them. Then again, they are so uneven that I really don't think mixing them would cause a gauge problem.

And... should I dye them? I could reprise the Kool-Aid Casserole project of 2006 (ably blogged by Steven). I figure there's a hat in there.

I could, of course, just save the first handspun as an artifact, as many people do. Or, I could mail it to Steven (he mailed me his first knitted swatch, which is made out of a super unattractive shade of aqua - I'd photograph it but it's rainy outside just now).

In other spinning news, look at this beautiful spindle that Anne sent me!

Anne is a GC grad who used to work in our library... now she's a librarian herself. We didn't really connect as knitters when she lived here - I think it was before I was such a ravenous knitter, and it was definitely before she knew how to spin. I bumped into her at MDSW a few months ago and she was shopping for a wheel that day. Little did I know I'd be following so close behind. This spindle has a carved vine twining its way up the shaft, and the whorl looks like a flower. I haven't mustered the courage to spin the beautiful fiber sample she included. I'm supposed to bring the spindle to my next spinning lesson and we'll give it a whirl.

If Kelley Petkun can spindle during meetings, will I be far behind?
(Update on the work sock soon... I'm an hour or two from finishing the pair.)