Stash Update, Part 2

And we're back from a second helping of turkey leftovers! Yesterday I was talking about new stash, and then promised you all a projects update, both of which require a little bit of context. Let me set the scene. So, we drove from the Bay Area to Orange County (yes that Orange County) for Thanksgiving, which is actually a bit unusual for us. Typically we spend the weekend with the significant other's family, which is a heckuva lot closer. Less holiday traffic and all. But this year we decided that since we didn't get to see my family that much this year between the business trips and Germany that we'd do Thanksgiving there to make up for it. Also, my folks recently took a trip to Toronto and wanted to show us pictures and souvenirs and whatnot.

Now, my mom was very brave in Toronto. They go on a trip about once every other year visiting places all across the globe for a professional conference that my dear old dad attends, and they like to get us kids a souvenir. Sometimes these work out really well (my sister got an awesome blanket from when they went to Germany) and sometimes not so much. This time, my mom just flat-out asked me what I would like her to bring me from Toronto. I said something about a famous blogger/author living there (those of you who are here for the knitting content already know who I'm talking about), and how she frequents this one yarn store, and wouldn't it be cool to have yarn from that yarn store, and to support local Toronto businesses, and how I'd have plenty of art posters and typical souvenir stuff from my travels in Germany. To make a long story short, my awesome mother made a pilgrimage to Lettuce Knit" to buy me yarn.

It was fabulous. I didn't know what she would get, but I knew it would be good. It turned out to be a little shocking because she actually called me from inside the store! I giggled a bit when she said "There's a lot of yarn here!" but I remembered that the first trip to a yarn shop can be a little overwhelming, and tried to be more helpful and think of a yarn that they'd probably have there but that would be harder for me to find locally. And I came up with the Fleece Artist brand. She got me two skeins, one each of Blue Face Aran (in Ivory ?) and Scotian Silk (in some deep plummy red color I can't identify). That's just what was for me. In addition, she apparently saw a store sample of some fingerless gloves and thought that it would be nice to have a pair for driving, so she picked out two skeins of Misti Organic Cotton (one a light tan and the other with one ply white and one ply dark brown) for me to use to make her fingerless gloves. The skeins of Fleece Artist are big (400 yards each!) and squishy. I keep petting them. They might have gravy on them by the end of the weekend.

Anyway, on to the project update. I found buttons for the February Lady sweater, and we didn't even have to go to San Diego to get them! Last weekend we took an impromptu day trip down to Stinson Beach, and managed to squeeze in a visit to Blue Bird Yarns in Sausalito. It's a new shop, but very cute and within walking distance of the rest of downtown Sausalito. They had a nice selection of yarn, including some brands that I don't see often in the city, so I will definitely be back. While the significant other made friends with the ladies knitting in the shop, I poked through their button boxes and found just what I had in mind: about 1-inch diameter circular wooden buttons. They got sewn on that evening.

Next: Remember this combo?


Well, I have decided what it must become: a smaller project that will turn into a Christmas gift for someone who reads the blog, so I can't show you photos of the progress or tell you the name of the project. The recipient is not on Ravelry though, so once I have some photos, I'll link you all over there to check it out. I was packing up on Wednesday morning, stuffing projects into my tote bag, when I realized that my two current works-in-progress were gifts intended for family members I would be hanging out with all weekend. Ack! Emergency project required: into my bag I stuffed my Tigget's Hollow Wensleydale yarn, some sock needles, and the book A Fine Fleece. I realized on Thursday that I don't know exactly how much yardage I have in the skein, so I have no idea if my plans for the Ancient Oak socks will actually see me past the heel turn, but I'm hoping I can at least get little ankle socks out of the skein. No pictures yet, but they are coming along nicely.

The good news is that I finished the other secret project today, which means I meant that I could give my mom her birthday present on time, and that I can now share it with you without fear. Here's the Rivendell socks in all their lovely green glory:



Details recap: Most of one skein of Sundara Sock yarn in the colorway "Pine over Gold", pattern is the Rivendell Socks. I used Addi Turbos in 2.75 mm for the cuff and instep and 2.0 mm for the heel flap, heel turn, sole, and toes. Originally I had planned on using 2.5's for the upper parts, but it was completely my fault for having shoddy yarn storage habits. For the rest of the weekend I'll just have to settle with squeezing the Fleece Artist skeins and knitting furiously on the other gift project in secret.

It Never Rains but Pours

Except for this weekend. Sheesh, it was hot! I think this definitely counts as an Indian Summer, seeing as we've had one cold rainstorm through here prior to the heat wave. It was hot and sunny even in our part of the city, which is unusual. I cannot wait for it to be cold all the time! It's usually dark by the time I leave work these days, and I love to come home, put on a sweater and some comfy pants, and play with my fiber. We've had wintertime food on the brain, too. Two weeks ago the significant other made a reeeaallly good batch of chili that lasted us for three days of lunch leftovers, and last week I realized I hadn't made a quiche in a very long time (apparently I also decided that we don't have enough saturated fat in our diet- this was a serious quiche).

Has anyone else looked through the Winter Twist Collective? I am in love with the "Creature Comforts" section! The artwork kills me (squirrels and kittens and bluejays!), and I want to make everything. The workmanship on this magazine is top-notch, and the patterns are presented beautifully.

The title of the post is actually in reference to FOs. I managed to finish up lots of projects since I last posted here. First of all, I spun and plied the Black BFL/Shetland blend all in one weekend. I know, insanity, right? But it was really nice to let myself get a little obsessed with a project. I put my audiobook on while the significant other was out, sat down with my wheel and fiber at the kitchen table, and just spun spun spun. Like all day. For two days in a row. And the result is this:



Here's a close-up with the Scrabble tile:



It's definitely a dense worsted (possible bulky?) yarn, about 235 yards. I originally intended the yarn to be a 50/50 blend of the Shetland and BFL, but I ended up not using all the BFL. In the end, I think that's for the best. Too much brown would have drowned out the colors more than I intended, and I was going more for a homogenizing effect. I don't have a scale, so I don't know exactly how much the skein weighs, but I'm guessing somewhere around 6.5 ounces. I definitely have less than half of my 4-ounce bump of BFL left over. And Kristine just told us on Ravelry that the November package has been shipped! Yippee! I'm going to have to do a separate post for all stuff I've stashed recently (uh... pay no attention to that pile of unphotographed fiber behind the curtain).

I also finished the February Lady sweater, on Saturday evening. Dudes, this was a seriously quick knit! Not counting the time spent knitting a teeny tiny too small neck, I took about 3 weeks on this from start to finish. The only problem now is buttons. I know exactly which buttons I want. This is good, as I can take an inappropriately long time to choose buttons. The buttons I want are in San Diego. This is bad, as I am not in San Diego. It might be awhile before the sweater has buttons. In the meantime, enjoy some FO pictures.

The front:



The back:



The sweater isn't washed or blocked, and I'm a little reluctant to wash the thing. There is the distinct possibility that the sweater will grow significantly in the wash, and I really really like the size the way it is now. But I guess I'll have to wash the darn thing sooner or later, so I might as well do it now. Oh well. I can justify putting off washing it until I have buttons, right?

And now to transition to another FO using one last photo of the February Lady Sweater:



The fleece is washed! Two Fridays ago I washed the very last batch of fleece, so now the whole thing is done. I've gone through and picked out the darkest locks and the lightest locks, separating them out from the rest of the fleece. I'll probably use them for different projects, but those piles are probably about 1/3 of the total fleece, and the leftover 2/3 is a much more even shade of gray. Much better for a cabled sweater! While I was trying on the February Lady sweater for photos, I had the whole thing laid out in the sunshine for sorting, and eventually I couldn't resist just picking up a double-armful of fluff and squishing it. You know what the really sick part was? A little voice in my head said, "We finished washing this one, so now we can have another one, right?" NO! The last thing I need right now is a raw fleece stash in addition to a yarn and processed fiber stash. I really should spin up a large chunk of this fleece before I get any thoughts about a second one. But overall, I was surprised at how manageable it was for me to wash the whole thing. Even in our tiny apartment, it really only took four or five afternoons to get the whole thing done. If I had been a little more organized, I bet it would have been done in October, too.

Now that Thanksgiving is almost upon us, it's time to start thinking about gift knitting. Last year my gift knitting included some pretty fancy stuff: a pair of colorwork felted slippers, a large man's sweater, a gloves & scarf set, just to name the gifts within the immediate family. I've been spinning up a storm this year, so I think it's time to consider making stuff from handspun. But no sweaters. While the gifts I made last year were very well-appreciated by their recipients, some were not so fun to knit. What holiday gift knitting have you all done, either current or past, that you most enjoyed knitting?

It's Officially Autumn! Or: Three Projects

I don't know why the weather got the memo about five weeks late, but this weekend we got our first sizable storm through the Bay Area. It sprinkled a bit on Friday, and was coming down steadily by the afternoon. It really got going Friday night and has been rained steadily all day on Saturday. I'm ridiculously excited about the rain, mostly because it means I can wear my knits again. I spent all day in my favorite scarf, even indoors!

I've been mainly working on three projects these days, with the Rivendell socks on hold for a while. One is a knitting project, one is a spinning project, and one is a future spinning project that requires a lot of prep. I'm really enjoying the balance of having projects in all three stages. One of them is portable enough for me to take it on the airplane to visit old college friends, I'm using stash fiber for the spinning project, and I'm practicing my new carding and blending skills with the prep project. Having more than one means that when I'm sick of knitting the lace pattern I can sit down and do some carding or spinning, so my short attention span is satisfied. Finally, having three means that the project I switch to always has a bit of novelty, like passing a friend while running errands or a colleague in the hallway: "Hello, haven't seen you in a few days, how's it going?" Pretty sweet. So here's what is happening with each one.

Knitting Project: February Lady Sweater Update

I've switched to size 8's on the February Lady sweater, and it fits just fine now! I got through the yoke, knit the 8 or 10 agonizingly long rows after the eyelet increases, then split for the sleeves and body last weekend. I was able to try the sucker on, and it's going to be a peach of a cardigan. I wish I could knit the sleeves on their own, though. The pattern calls for you to pick up sleeve stitches after finishing the body, and I'm not looking forward to turning the whole damn thing over and over in my lap while I crank out the sleeve. Sleeves make great travel knitting, and I'd love to be able to work out a way to knit them now and attach them later.

So far the only thing I can come up with is to do an invisible cast on and graft them on at the end, but the thought of grafting in the gull lace pattern gives me heart palpitations. Not to mention this is promising to be a really lovely sweater and I tend to get impatient with finishing, and I'd be really pissed if the grafting looked crappy and I ended up having to re-knit the sleeves. I can't remember if I mentioned this before, but this pattern is a sized-up-for-adults version of an Elizabeth Zimmerman baby sweater. Perhaps I'd better not mess with her genius. She really knows what she's talking about when it comes to sweater construction. Anyway, the sweater is coming along, and I'm hoping this will get done quickly now that the weather has taken a turn.

Spinning Project: Cotton!

So when I first got back from Germany, I ordered some cotton fiber with ideas of spinning it up quickly for a project that wouldn't make my hands sweat in the late August heat. Turns out 100% cotton is a lot trickier than I imagined, and the fiber got stuffed down in a fiber stash bag. I tried different wheel ratios, re-read my notes from the cellulose fiber tasting class, even went back to a drop spindle to try and figure it out. Every now and then, I'd pull out a little more and try again, but I kept getting the most incredibly lumpy yarn that would pull apart at the fat bits (which were getting underspun) or break at the thin bits (which were absorbing all the twist) before it got to the bobbin. On the Thursday night before Color I felt stubborn and sat down with an empty bobbin, determined to make progress. I ended up staying up a little too late in the evening and a lot of little bits of almost-yarn ended up in the trash bin, but at least I was getting somewhere. After a few hours, I was starting to learn how to hold my hands, how tightly to grasp the fiber, teaching my body that it needs to do something differently to make yarn from cotton. In order to keep this knowledge fresh in my hands, I've been trying to spin a little bit (even if it's just five minutes at the wheel) every day, and the improvement is there, if small. My yarn got more even, especially on the second bobbin. I don't think I'll get enough yarn to do something bigger than a hat (or a cowl... I have had cowls and mittens on the brain lately. Can you tell I'm ready for the cold weather?) but I will be proud to have met the challenge. My all-time favorite handknit scarf is out of cotton, and it would be a real treat to re-make it some day from scratch. I just finished plying the two bobbins together, so we'll see if how much yardage I get out of it later.

Fiber Prep Project: Blended Colors

At the beginning of our fiber prep class, Kristine gave us a lesson on using handcards, and gave us all samples of bright red commercially dyed wool and some of her delicious black BFL to blend together. I fell in love with the resulting tweedy yarn, so when this came in the mail:



I knew my plan. This is 4 ounces of Shetland wool, the second shipment in the A Verb for Keeping Warm Wooly Wonders fiber club, colorway Fruit Loops. I ordered 4 ounces of Black BFL fiber from Crown Mountain Farms with plans to blend it with the Shetland to make a tweedy, heathered yarn. I split the Shetland into four chunks, roughly separating the colors. One chunk was blue, one mostly deep red, one kind of pinkish-orange with bits of yellow, and one a more brownish orange. I ended up with a bunch of rolags in each color, and now I have to decide what I want the yarn to look like in the end, which I think will mostly depend on what sort of project I want to get out of this. The colors are still lovely, but much more muted and I can't wait to see the yarn.

I'll post some pictures of the rolags before I start spinning (and of the cotton yarn before I start knitting), I promise! Here's my excuse this time: the significant other got some new toys for the camera. And when I say some new toys, I mean he found his mom's old stash of camera bits and bobs from when she used to work as a professional photographer. Filters, a flash and flash screen, and (so I'm told) a Very Serious Tripod. He wanted to take some photos to play around with the new stuff and get acquainted with it, and I told him to go ahead, I could get a little spinning in before it was my turn. Aaaannnnnd... He used up all the battery on the camera before I could take my WIP pictures. So even though I can't show you the pretty heathered Shetland/Black BFL blend, the status on my cardigan, or my new cotton yarn yet, I can give you a few artsy photos taken of me and the wheel while I was doing the 2-ply. Enjoy!

The flyer and bobbin from the back of the wheel, while I was finishing up the second bobbin of singles:


The Schacht sheep logo and the flyer during plying (notice how I switched to Scotch tension?):


So now that I have my first bobbin full of cotton yarn, I'd like to ask you all a question: do you actually need to boil cotton yarn? If it makes a difference, the fiber was in sliver form, the yarn is now a 2-ply, probably bulky weight. I've heard something about boiling to set the twist in cotton yarns in the distant past, and if it's the difference between my project falling apart or something awful like that, I'll go for it. For example, I know that setting the twist by washing with protein fibers is not absolutely vital (or at least I haven't been struck with lightning for knitting with unwashed handspun and those mittens turned out just fine). I usually wash my yarn anyway, just to get any dirt from my hands off the yarn before knitting with it, but I rarely weight my yarn while drying anymore, as I feel it deadens the bounce that I love about my handspun. Also, boiling my yarn frankly sounds a bit scary. So if I like my cotton yarn the way it is, what's the worst that could happen if I don't boil it? Inquiring minds want to know!

Color and Cardigan

Hi everyone, sorry it's been such a long time between posts. This month has been busy-busy-busy, and not just for me! Seems like the autumn is just slipping away from everybody I talk to. It's definitely getting a little chilly in the mornings around here, and the ground at work is covered in oak leaves, which makes me smile.



So Saturday was Color: Fall 2008, and it was another beautiful day in the East Bay. Wow has the festival grown! See how we have TWO tents for the spinners in the picture? There were also double the number of vendors, and it definitely seemed like there were more people floating in and out throughout the day. I took two classes, which left me a little more time to sit and chat and browse the market, and I wasn't nearly as brain-dead by the end of the day as I was in April. I took Spinning from the Lock with Maia, where we basically learned the various ways to spin fleece directly from the lock (without turning it into a carded batt or roving or combed top). We spun some basic wool (no particular breed), some Romney, and dyed and undyed CVM (California Variegated Mutant), all still in lock form. Here's the plied results:



The Romney was fun, I don't think I'd spun that one before. I also took Kristine's Fiber Prep class, where we looked at handcards, combs, and drum carders. Kristine brought her drum carder and a bag full of random fiber, and let us all make batts! Super-fun. These were not huge, thick batts, maybe an ounce (or less) each, but I had SO much fun spinning mine up later that evening. I was so excited about it I forgot to take photos of it before spinning, but it was some black BFL fiber along with some green wool/silk and mohair locks. I can see why people go all crazy with their drum carders, there is a sense of adventure when you're using one (is it shiny? Sure! Throw it on the tray!)



So we were essentially playing with different fiber prep techniques, and I had enough foresight to bring along some of my clean locks, so I got to try out the combs! Yippee! Here's the comb set-up, along with a little cloud of my combed Cormo and the pile of waste fiber (yikes!).



We had stations set up to use the drum carder and two sets of combs, and just spent the last 45 minutes or so playing with fiber!



I really wanted to try every different hand-produced prep method I could before deciding how to process my fleece, and I feel like I accomplished that goal during this festival. So now I have little samples of yarn, all spun from the Cormo, in a variety of different preps and spinning methods. I did two yarns that were combed, one spun worsted on my Maggie, one spun woolen on the Mt. Rainier; one yarn spun woolen from a carded rolag, and one yarn spun worsted from flicked-out locks.



The picture doesn't have my worsted-spun combed yarn, because I spun it after taking the picture (oops)! I knit them all up into a little sample (pictures later), and I'm stuck between the true worsted and the yarn spun from the lock. Surprisingly, the lock-spun yarn feels rather slick and nice, even compared to the combed fibers. I can't tell if that was just part of the fleece that perhaps didn't get quite as clean as the rest, or if the different texture is a result of the prep method. The true worsted yarn came out very very squishy and just looks more like a sweater yarn than any of the others, but I also spun it on a different spindle than the others, so I might just be biased because it's a thicker yarn. I definitely didn't like the carded rolag yarn for the kinds of projects I have in mind for this fleece, though. I've had one of the cabled sweaters from the book A Fine Fleece kicking around in there for a few weeks now, so I picked up a copy of the book from the marketplace after classes. Some Ravelry folks did a potluck lunch, and man did folks bring the tastiest food! It was a very long, very fun, very fibery day. I came home exhausted, with my name tag still stuck to my shirt and my addi turbos around my neck for safe-keeping, and wanted to stay up and spin all night long. I can't wait for the next one!

In other knitting news, the Rivendell socks are on hold since I got to the boring foot part. I also need to figure out the length of the potential recipient's feet before I go on so I don't put the toe at the wrong place. In the meantime, I have been itching to cast on another sweater since I finished the Tangled Yoke to such great success.

The February Lady sweater has been all the rage on Ravelry (up to nearly 2500 projects!), so I picked up some yarn and, like a very good and patient knitter, made a nice big gauge swatch. I swatched in both garter stitch and the lace pattern in three different needle sizes (US 8, 7, and 6), and even washed the swatch again and double-checked my measurements before casting on. Even though the pattern recommends US 8's, I got gauge on my 6's, so I dutifully trusted the swatch and worked on the raglan increases all this week. Last night, after trying on the nearly-completed yoke for the sixth time (first two try-ons in a cafe in public with other knitters, the rest at home) I realized that the neck is actually too small. My brain had a very difficult time accepting this state of affairs. It whined at me: "But we got gauge! And it doesn't look like it's going to choke anyone else on Ravelry, even when they knit the size small! And dammit, I want to knit on the stupid thing after I did all that stupid math to figure out how to spread 47 yarn-overs evenly over 219 body stitches!" I might have stamped my foot in girlish petulance. I'm sure I dreamed about this sweater, agonizing in my sleep whether to bravely trudge on or rip it out and try a new needle or pattern size.

Finally, after a (not so restful) night of sleep, I decided to hang the gauge swatch. The thing is too constricting about the neck, and I need to go up at least one needle size for this pattern size. Still struggling over how it came out wrong when I did everything right, I had an epiphany while brushing my teeth. I grabbed the half-ripped-out yoke and snatched up my tape measure. My heart pounding in my chest, I picked a random spot on the yoke I'd just spent the last 12 hours agonizing over. I laid down the tape measure, lined it up with a garter ridge, and slowly counted stitches. I counted twice, people, just to be sure. And then compared it to my gauge swatch. These are the following results:

Gauge swatch: beautiful, even, LYING 18 stitches per 4 inches

Sweater: lovely, squishy, DECEITFUL 19.5 stitches per 4 inches

They were both knit with the same exact needle, my beloved addi natura US 6 (4.0 mm) 24-inch circular. The swatch was knit back-and-forth, and so was the sweater. I was dumbfounded that my gauge swatch could so easily have led me astray, but also relieved to know that I'm not bonkers and can still do basic arithmetic. I have learned that maybe (just maybe) if the sweater looks great on everybody else, and everybody else knit it on needles two sizes bigger than yours, and you sweater is a little small, it's okay to trust your instinct and go up two needle sizes. Especially if that means that you 16 stitches per 4 inches in the gauge swatch might translate to 17.5 stitches per 4 inches in the sweater.