Camel

I'm on quite the spinning spree. I've got a little better picture of the Louet wool and the Ashland Bay alpaca that I completed this weekend. It's still hard to see the colors in the wool but you can see some of the highlights.

The next thing to hand was a 1 oz bag of camel that I bought from Karen. I've never spun camel before but I did know that it's a short fiber so I needed lots of spin in it. I decided to use my lovely Kromski Minstrel set up with Scotch tension and the 8.5:1 ratio whorl, I spun 2 whorls of 1/2 oz each and then plied to get just over 95 yards out of the ounce of fiber. I was a little concerned that I'd spun the singles too tightly but, with the plying, it softened up amazingly and it's made a really nice skein. I'm thinking now that I need to get a couple more ounces, now that I sort of know what I'm doing with it and get a little more yardage for a scarf or maybe gloves. Wouldn't that be wonderful?! Soft camel gloves.

1860

We've been researching again! We got to spend another day at the Lincoln Presidential Library in the midst of the Godey's Ladies Books and found some goodies. We did manage to find two of the most convoluted , confusing patterns ever, but, with the aid of a woodcut and some patience, I've got one of them decoded. Here's a picture of the original pattern:

(click to see larger image)

Don't worry that there's a line cut off at the end. It has, as with most of the rest of the pattern, no relation to the finished product. Here it is done in fingering weight and size 4 needle (top) and in lace weight (bottom).

So, with this in mind, here's the pattern as it actually works:

Cast on 3 stitches.

Row 1: K1, knit in front and back of next stitch, K1

Row 2: K2, yo, K2

Row 3: K2, knit in front and back of next stitch, K1

Row 4: K3, yo, K3

Row 5: Knit

Row 6: K3, yo, K1, yo, K3

Row 7: K3, purl to last 3 stitches, K3

Row 8: Knit

Row 9: Repeat row 7

Row 10: K3, (yo, K1) x4, yo, K3

Row 11-13: Repeat rows 7-9

Row 14: K3, (yo, K1) x7, yo, K3

Row 15-17: Repeat rows 7-9

Row 18: K3, (yo, K2tog) x2, (yo, K1) x7, (yo, K2tog) x2, yo, K3

Row 19-21: Repeat rows 7-9

Row 22: K3, (yo, K2tog) x4, (yo, K1) x7, (yo, K2tog) x4, yo, K3
Row 23-25: Repeat rows 7-9
Row 26: K3, (yo, K2tog) x6, (yo, K1) x7, (yo, K2tog) x6, yo, K3

Row 27-29: Repeat rows 7-9

Row 30: K3, (yo, K2tog) x8, (yo, K1) x7, (yo, K2tog) x8, yo, K3

Row 31-33: Repeat rows 7-9

Row 34: K3, (yo, K2tog) x10, (yo, K1) x7, (yo, K2tog) x10, yo, K3

Row 35-37: Knit

Bind off loosely.

I've also been spinning and feel good about the fact that I've actually finished 2 lots of yarn. I've had so many spinning projects in process and finished so few of them that I feel a real sense of accomplisment with these. I don't have a good picture of the finished skeins (they're still wet) but here's a photo of them on the bobbin.

One is a light grey skein in beautiful alpaca from Ashland Bay and was such a dream to spin. Can't wait to get more of it. The other skein (above) is Louet wool top which was also a lot of fun to spin. The colorway is 'Sunset' which you could see a lot more before it was spun up. But it's the perfect color for a project I was wanting to do for a yoked sweater and I got almost 450 yards out of 1/2 pound of fiber. I got almost 300 yards out of 1/2 pound of the alpaca (alpaca is much heavier than wool).