Monthly Archives: January 2010
A Handspun Shawl
I finished my little handspun shawl over the weekend and blocked it yesterday. This was an extremely fast knit and I really, really like the way it turned out. I’m actually pretty excited about it since this is the first shawl I’ve knit without a pattern and my first time making up a lace chart and figuring repeats and all that. I have to admit that I was worried that something, anything, would go wrong. I was fairly convinced that my math was off, that I’d run out of yarn, that the lace would look like crap with with the stripey yarn. Thanks to many hours in front of the computer fiddling with charts it all worked out. I did have to cut a few rows out of the lace since my yarn was running short but I ended up with enough in the end to do an extra row on the very last of the edging, so it all worked out in the end.
I know the lace would look much better in a solid color but I do like it with the stripes. I’m tempted to knit this again with a solid yarn and do the smaller chevrons from the top part of the lace all over the body.
And here it is all unpinned. The shawl is fairly small, about 45” across the top and 23” from the center of the back to the bottom point, it’s a good scarf shape. The yarn is the very first lace weight yarn that I spun and it’s pretty rough. It has a lot of slubs and thick spots, spots that are very thin and extremely over-twisted, it was rough to knit with. The yarn felt kind of scratchy and harsh while I was knitting but after I washed and blocked the shawl it’s very soft and has a nice drape to it and it has that crisp look that lace gets. Blocking changes everything. And if I had been planning this out from the beginning instead of kind of winging it, I would have made a nice big swatch first, but I didn’t.
Today I decided to finally finish my Alpaka Tunic so I got it out and pinned it together and tried it on and it is way too long. So I’ve unpicked the seaming I already did and frogged the yoke and next I’ll rip back a couple inches and reknit the yoke to make it a little shorter. Going through all this sucks but it’s going to be worth it in the end since it will fit better and be a decent length.
Lots of Stuff
My internet access has been spotty this week. The cable company says they’re having city wide problems and we have to be patient, we’re switching to DSL, if we can ever get online to order it. Heh.
Yesterday, since I couldn’t get online all day, I finished off my hand woven wash cloths. I really like the looped pile cloth but the textured one is nice, too, I just like the looped better. They’re pretty small, around seven inches wide by five and a half inches tall, but I think they’ll be okay.
Since I finished Citron, I decided to cast on another little shawl. This is some of my older handspun, it varies from lace to fingering weight and I’m using a size 4US/3.5mm needle. I first tried a lace pattern at the top but the yarn is so busy that the pattern didn’t show up. So, I think I’ll do the top plain and then a lace edging, I even have a couple in mind that I’ll try out when I get there. I’m doing this very much on the fly, no figuring numbers, no charting, no real planning, so I have no idea how it will work out, but it’s just knitting, I can always fudge something to make it work.
I did chart out the lace for my original shawl idea and I might try it with some different yarn. I have a bunch of white sock yarn that I can use (and dye, if I want) so I think I’ll try it out next. Maybe.
Last week I ordered these batts from Corgi Hill Farm on Etsy and I just got them in the mail yesterday. The big batts are Merino, Silk and some gold Firestar and the smaller batt at the bottom is Merino, it’s just a little sample. The batts are gorgeous, the fiber is so soft and shiny. I have 4.3oz and I plan spinning some today.
It is so dark outside today. I snuck up on Sally and caught her sleeping on the couch this afternoon, I had to use a bright flash it’s so dark in my house.
And I am off to spin. Have a great weekend!
Mishmash
I don’t know why but all day today and yesterday I have felt fantastic. I have lots of energy, I’ve been sleeping good and I just want to constantly make stuff.
So, I pulled out a little fiber that I had sitting around in a tote bag and spun it up. This is superwash wool that I dyed a few years ago, there wasn’t much of it, a thin strip of roving about five feet long and less than an ounce. Actually, it’s so light that my scale can’t even weigh it. I’ve been trying to spin a nice, consistent lace weight yarn for years and it’s just never happened. I’ve had people tell me that you can’t spin lace weight on a Babe wheel with a 5:1 ratio, that you need a smaller bobbin or a scotch tension wheel but I’ve seen other people do it, I just never could. I pulled out my copy of “The Intentional Spinner” and read the section about spinning lace weight yesterday and it just clicked, I finally got it. I just spun the whole bit of roving on one bobbin, taking it nice and slow and really trying to spin as thin as I could. When I was done I checked the wpi of my singles and it was around 60. I Andean plied the singles and the plied yarn is around 32wpi, depending on where you check it, there’s some thick and thin spots. So, this is officially the thinnest yarn I’ve spun and most of it is about the same the same thickness as my little bit of Helen’s Lace that I have leftover from Citron. Yippee!
I also got the urge to weave so I dug out some very old Sugar ‘n Cream yarn and warped up the loom. I remembered seeing the article on Weavezine about pile loop wash cloths so I thought I would try that out. I warped enough for two but after the first I decided to try something different and went with a pick up pattern. I haven’t finished the cloths off yet, obviously, I’ll do that tomorrow, but they look great so far. I may weave up some little kitchen towels for my mom later on, too.
I cast off Citron this morning and blocked it today while the air is dry (it’s supposed to rain tomorrow). This is really, really small. I guess I didn’t realize how small it would be when I read the pattern. It’s about 35” across the top and 14” deep even though I ran out of yarn before the bottom ruffle and had to bind off early. This yarn is almost too loose and slippery to hold the texture of the ruffles and it probably would have worked out better if I had gone down a needle size. It is pretty even if it’s too small to be usable.
The details:
- Pattern: Citron from the Winter 2009 Knitty
- Yarn: Lorna’s Laces Helen’s Lace, I don’t know the name of the colorway, used about 50g
- Needles: US4/3.5mm
- Mods: I knit mine shorter, I left off the bottom ruffle since I ran out of yarn
So that’s that. Tomorrow I’ll show my wips.
New Projects, Old-ish Projects
It was cloudy this afternoon when I took my pictures so the colors aren’t great. Rosemarkie is moving right along. I’ve knit about a repeat and a half on the body and I’m just so thrilled with it. I love watching the pattern emerge as I knit, I just love knitting it. I have to pay just enough attention to the color work to keep my interested but the repeats are easy enough to memorize that I can knit while I’m watching TV or at the computer. The only problem is that I knit with one yarn in each hand so it’s tough at the computer, I have to keep putting down the yarn in my right hand to type or use the touch pad on my laptop, not the best computer knitting.
So, for the computer knitting we have nice, easy stockinette. This is Citron, from the winter Knitty, knit in Lorna’s Laces Helen’s Lace that is leftover from my Cold Mountain shawl that I knit last year. For some reason I’m really tempted to do the 10 shawls in 2010 challenge on Ravelry this year. I have absolutely no need for that many shawls nor do I have the yarn to knit them, but it kind sounds fun. I’m testing the waters right now, I guess. I’ll knit Citron and then start another mini-shawl with some handspun that I have tucked away under my bed and then see how tempting it is. I have no doubt I could knit ten shawls in a year but there are other things I’d like to make, in fact I had planned on whittling down the ‘ole queue this year. I’ll decide something sooner or later.
I am, of course, thinking about what to knit next, always. I really need a cardigan that I can just grab and throw on over anything, I have a store bought black one, but I’d like one in brown and I just happen to have some yarn I can use. I’m thinking that I’ll just make a Central Park Hoodie but I also really like the Minimalist Cardigan and the Dollar and a Half Cardigan which would all work with the yarn I have. I think my problem is that I have too many choices.
