Ask me what I did this weekend

Remember I was working on spinning some mohair and was wondering if it would work to ply it with the turquoise merino? Well, here are the results:

I love the way the solid colored merino toned down and grounded the colors of the mohair. I've got a couple more ounces of the mohair to spin and I'm waiting for more merino to come so I can finish. This skein turned out what I would call heavy lace weight, makeing about 320 yards (72 grams) so doing the rest of it should give me about 600 yards. Now it's just a matter of figuring out what the pretty yarn wants to be!

I had to do some traveling last week for my job. Actually, I should say I got to travel because it was the perfect opportunity to do some exploring. Of course, any trip requires the project search. I couldn't figure out what I wanted to take with me because I didn't really have a good project going to take. So I quickly grabbed this black wool that my friend Cindy gave me and the leftover yarn from some recent socks and started to experiment with it. I've been wanting to do some other projects using the Brioche stitch in preparation for our Heritage Knitting Retreat next June. I thought it would be cool to have the electric colors of the sock yarn against the black. The gauntlet is reminiscent of what you might have seen in the latter half of the 19th century.

The second thing I grabbed was some Fortissima Socka in white and the pattern for "Evening Stockings for a Young Lady to Knit." It's a sock pattern in the Nov/Dec 2009 Piecework Magazine, adapted by Nancy Bush from a Weldon's pattern. As you can see, it's a long sock and the lacy pattern is so lacy and so easy, you wouldn't believe. The shaping for the leg is done along the back of the leg so you have a seam running up the back and the pretty lace everywhere else. I know this looks like a sock to fit a child but that's only because it's not blocked yet and I have pretty small feet anyway.

I thought I would make this with the white yarn because it's the only sock yarn I had 3 skeins of (bought it for something else that I ended up not making) and I wanted to be sure I had enough. The thought was to make them with the white and then dye them but I like them so much that I've decided to keep them as is. I would definitely recommend these for sock lovers. Easy with a huge payoff!

Experimenting

One of the fun things about finding smaller amounts of fiber inexpensively is feeling much more free about experimenting with them. There's something about having 8 ounces or more of a fiber and thinking you need to finish up with enough to actually use for something. Then having 4 ounces makes me think, okay, this isn't so much what can I do to stretch it or what can I do that might be interesting.

One of the fibers I got from the Esther's Place booth at the Bishop Hill Spin-in was a ball of mohair roving dyed oceany sort of colors, turqoises, lime green, blue, etc. Very pretty but I'd never seen a 100% mohair yarn. Commercial mohair yarn is always mixed with wool and, for some reason, some sort of nylon or acrylic (never quite figured that out about the nylon). So I spun about 2 ounces of the mohair and started thinking about how I wanted the finished yarn to come out. I know, I know, you're supposed to think about that BEFORE you start to spin. Just you be quiet.

I only did half the roving so if I decided to make a 2 ply mohair yarn, I would have a fairly even go at the second bobbin. But as I was spinning, my eyes wandered to the table where I had started a turqoise merino sample I've had for ages. Came from Outback Fibers in Texas in a sampler pack I got one time. Had an ounce about a dozen different colors and wonderful to spin. So I started wondering about using the merino as a pairing to the mohair. The turquoise is not the same as the main color of the mohair but because the color is moving around so much, I thought it might be a nice counterpoint. So I started on a bobbin of merino.

Let me tell you, if you've never spun well-prepared merino your life is empty. Never mind all your friends and your activities and achievements. Empty. All empty, my friend.

As I kept spinning, my ounce of merino kept going and going and going. Could this have been 2 ounces? Maybe so but it's spinning so finely with my Scotch tension working and my Minstrel humming along. Now I'm not sure what to do? Should I just finish this and make a 2-ply lace weight (that's what it would be) or bit the bullet and ply it with the mohair? Keep in mind that I still have 2 ounces of the mohair left to spin and do something with.

Maybe I'll try a more woolen spun with the second batch. Spin from the fold? It's a long stapled bunch of stuff.

A Victorian Garden

I finished 4 ounces of the Blue-faced Leicester fiber in the colorway, Victorian Garden. Although I originally thought I would do a 4-ply, in the end I decided to do a 3-ply using the Navajo plying technique because I wanted to keep the colorway. I'm so glad I decided to do it this way. The stips of color were still long enough to not be too stripey but it just sort of intensified the colors that were there. Here's the skein - 270 yards or thereabouts.

After I got this spun up, I was so anxious to see how it knitted up that I couldn't wait to start. Plus I had to take my car to have it serviced Saturday morning so what better time?! This is knit on size 2 needles using my basic sock pattern because I didn't want anything to get in the way of the colors.

My first socks with my very own handspun sock yarn! So proud.

Weekend work

I just wanted to do a quick post to show better pictures of the skeins I finished this weekend. The green is a 2-ply fingering weight spun from 4 ounces of handpainted wool. I bought it a couple of weeks ago at Bishop Hill for a present for a colleague that loves these greens. It was a little bit difficult to spin because there was some slight felting with the dying but I'm pleased with how it came out. I'm getting a little bit better at controlling the size of my singles. Spinning a consistent single is my biggest problem so I felt this was a bit of a victory. It's not perfect but it's definitely better than I've done before.

The silk skein is 2-ply spun from dyed hankies.

(Click on the pictures to see larger images.)

This is the beginning of some Blue-faced Leicester that I bought quite awhile ago in St Louis. I prepped it to spin for sock yarn but it got pushed to the back. I finally got it pulled out this weekend and started spinning it. OMG! I've never spun anything that spins as beautifully as this. There's 8 ounces of it that I've got stripped into 4 2-ounce strips for spinning a 4-ply sock yarn.

Spinning things

I've finished my first go at silk hankies spun on the wheel. It came out fairly well but I did make a few live and learn mistakes:

1. I didn't get enough twist into the singles. I think I assumed that because silk was such a long staple that it wouldn't need as much twist. I used the next to the largest ratio but I think I would use a smaller ratio because it really does need a lot more twist that I added.
2. I drafted it too thin. It works fine but I think I would prefer to have it a little heavier. I'm glad that I got 370 yards out of it (18 grams) but I think when I do the red hankies (23 grams) I'm going to for about 250 yards.

I also got a good start on the hand-painted wool I bought at Bishop Hill. I've got about a quarter of it left to spin for singles and then I think I'm going to 2-ply it. I've been debating about whether I want to Navajo ply to keep the color pattern or 2-ply. We'll see when we get there.

Try, try again

I started a knitted gansey back in, oh March or April, I think. Using Plymouth Galway yarn and Beth Brown-Reinsel's gansey book, I started working. The main section was easy enough and went along pretty quickly but, as can sometimes happen, things got in the way and this got laid aside. After all, who needs a wooly gansey in the middle of summer? Not that we had much summer but you know how it goes. A few weeks ago, I pulled it out again and got moving.

I knew I wanted to do a saddle shoulder construction but it made me have to stop and think how to do it. and how to work out the sleeves so it would fit. I don't think I've ever had to take out and re-knit something as much as I had to do this. Part of it was the argyle pattern section where I kept messing up. Then I finished the shoulder section and realized I hadn't added the neckline shaping. Out it came. I bet I ripped out and re-knit the shoulder section 5 or 6 times. I finally got it finished, though. I haven't washed or blocked it yet.

I did a little something different for the collar. Instead of the regular knit 2, purl 2 ribbing, I decided to use a fisherman's rib. I didn't want the collar to draw up at all and fisherman's rib (or brioche) is the most stretchy stitch I know. I wasn't sure about it until I got it on but I think it really worked.

How long

I had seen that a local auction house had a spinning wheel up for bid this weekend and I was going to go over and have a look on Friday night. But I worked late and forgot. As I was running some errands on Saturday, I finally remembered about the wheel so went over to see if they'd gotten to it yet. Fortunately, they hadn't.

I had a look to make sure it was complete. It was. It was in pretty good shape although it looks quite old. See what you think.

I'm so pleased with it. I wish I'd thought to take a photo before I cleaned it and oiled it with Tung oil so you could see the difference but you can see how much it like the oiling.