Updates

I can't believe it's been a week already since I last posted. The first half of the week I was working hard on the house, and the second half I've been knocked down with a cold. In fact, I'm typing this mainly to stay awake until I can have my next dose of Theraflu, so forgive me if I get a little incoherent. I did manage to get a little knitting and spinning in, though, so I have lots of pictures.

The Baby Surprise Jacket is finished, but this is the only picture I have, so I'll tease you with it. I noticed a discussion of this pattern on Ravelry, about whether it was a process or product knit and whether it was dated. Someone said that whether it was dated depended on the yarns chosen, and I think I have chosen some dated-looking yarns, but, in my opinion, it adds to the charm. Let's just call it retro. I have never been really drawn to the pattern, and knit it mainly because I had about the right amount of yarn for it, but I really like how it turned out. There's something satisfying about folding a mess of knitting into a jacket.

The handspun socks are finished, and they are just about my favorite thing ever.

There's a visible difference in spinning quality between the first and second socks, but you can't tell when you're wearing them. (Yes, I broke them in before taking the FO pic, I couldn't stand to wait!) I love them for their imperfections, just like I love how my very first pair are noticeably different gauges and the grafting sucks.

I spun up the other half of the Ashland Bay merino and plied it together. One bobbin had a lot more on it than the other, so I Andean plied the leftovers, and it wasn't as scary as it looked. Yay for new skills. Makes me want to pick up a spindle again.

I counted the wraps on the niddy noddy, but I didn't write down the skein length, so I kind of forgot. I think it was about 270 yards. I also didn't measure wpi or put a coin in the picture, but it's about a sport weight I think. Let's pretend the dog hair is for scale.

And then last night I did this:

Low twist singles at a fingering-to-sport weight. About 260 yards. This is half the roving, split down the middle like I like to do, and slightly predrafted.

I need to work on spinning thicker yarns on my wheel, and spinning them evenly. Right now the only way I can get worsted is to three-ply.

OK, the dogs are driving me crazy, and it's time for my medicine, so I'm going to take it and go to bed.

I leave you with this funny moment from earlier in the week.

Duchess, the little one on the left, won the tug of war. She's tiny and mean, and the boys know to give her what she wants or bear the consequences.

Surprises

In spinning and knitting news, I've started a Baby Surprise Jacket using my handspun Blue Faced Leicester in FatCatKnits' Summer Cabin colorway, cut with Plymouth Galway Highland Heather in brown.

Since BFL is a longer-staple fiber, and, as such, needs less twist to hold together, I tried really hard to spin it loosely and keep it soft. I Navajo plied it to get it up to a worsted-to-bulky weight and to keep the colors separate. I had a hard time with it after spinning so much merino, and I was worried that it was going to look like the dog's breakfast, but I think it's knitting up pretty cute. I think the colors will look good on what will probably be a strapping little red-headed boy, expected next month. Here's hoping he likes 1970's appliance colors.

The other big surprise going on around here is that we're going to be moving. My husband got a job over an hour away, so we'll be relocating to East Texas in the very near future. What this means for the blog is that, amidst trying to sell our house, find a new one to live in, move, and job-search, I'll either be knitting a lot or not very much at all. If you don't hear from me much in the next couple of weeks, that means things are going well.

Second verse, better than the first.

The second half of the sock yarn is finally spun, plied, and dried -- but not until after that first sock was knit! As for my other responsibilities, the outside Christmas lights are down, the ornaments and such are packed away, some laundry was done, but the tree is still up and dust bunnies still prevail. Actually, since we got the new sofa, and Bruneaux, come to think of it, the dust bunnies aren't bunnies at all, no fluff, just piles of dog hair that collect in corners. I'm sure you really wanted to know that. I'm trying to shame myself into vacuuming.

Back to the topic at hand, I think it was really helpful to knit up some of my sock yarn before spinning the rest of it. I could see which parts I liked, and what I liked about them -- because you know, being handspun, and amateur handspun at that, it was just a long sampler of yarn possibilities. But once I figured out what possibilities I liked, I had something to aim for. Which is much better than, "Maybe I can make it thinner. OMG that's too thin! It's going to break! Now that's too thick," that I was doing the first time around. I was also afraid the first time of falling into the newbie pattern of overspinning my singles, so I deliberately tried to take it easy, and went too far the other way. My singles drifted apart several times while I was Navajo plying, and I had to tie them back together to get going again. (Is there a better solution in that scenario than a knot? I did find that if I just left the tails hanging and plied them into the yarn, it was pretty invisible.)

So, anyway, lessons learned, I went back to the wheel, spun the thickness that I knew to be just about right, put enough twist in, and Navajo plied it like in this video (so much faster and more even that what I had been doing!), and I got this:

I didn't bother with hot/cold dunking or whacking the second time around, either. I'm not sure it helps with superwash wool, which makes perfect sense, but I figured I had to try it to really know. I just washed it in a little Soak and vinegar (the dye ran a little the first time), pressed out the excess water with a towel, and snapped it between my hands. The second skein was actually well-balanced (yay!), so it didn't take a lot of abuse to get it to behave.

Excuse me while I do a happy dance. Right now I think this is maybe the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I made that! I get it now. Knitting is just the gateway drug. This is the hard stuff. I'm done for. There is already talk of "my next wheel," at which, to his credit, my husband did not flinch. I guess it helps that his hobby is much more expensive than mine, and he has already watched me come home in a sour mood, sit in front of the wheel, and become human again. And every now and then he gets some woolly goodness. No new toys for a while, maybe a long while, just dreams and plans.

And yes, those are flowers in the background. Not winter flowers like pansies or camellias, either, although the buds on the camellia are getting fat, but roses. Lady Banks roses, which only bloom once, in the spring. Mine has gone haywire. The little pink roses in the front think it's spring, too. They say that we have four seasons in Texas: December, January, February, and summer. I'm really ticked that we've gone straight from fall to spring. I want my cold January! I live for ice days, when the whole city shuts down for no good reason and it feels like I have the whole frozen world to myself. Last year we went to the ranch for MLK weekend and got iced in and had to stay an extra day or two. Possibly my favorite birthday ever.

ZOMG - Sock Yarn!

When I ordered this roving, I was thinking baby sweater, but apparently it wanted to be socks.



I split the roving down the middle and spun half of it up, then chain-plied it. I overplied it on purpose, because I had just read this, and I like how it looks.

I finished plying and started spinning the second single yesterday, and I could hardly wait for the first skein to dry. It came out at about 194 yards and 18 wpi.

I am just beside myself, I love this so much. Here's hoping the second skein is a reasonable match.

Too bad I actually have to be productive today. Stupid Christmas decorations. Stupid laundry. Stupid dust bunnies. All I want is socks.

4 oz. is a lot of fiber!

Back when I first decided to learn to spin, I bought eight ounces of Ashland Bay merino in a heathered grey and four ounces in carbon. I knew merino wasn't recommended for beginning spinners, but I was hardheaded and bought it anyway. And for a while, I practiced with my heavy spindle and my fine fiber and made craptacular little skeins every day, worrying more about figuring things out than making good yarn.

Then we got Bruneaux and, fiber dog that he is, he interfered with the spinning. Since I could only spin if I locked myself in the 'yarn room,' I spun less frequently. Eventually I got some different spindles that I liked better, and some easier-to-spin Shetland wool, and I felt less like a klutz.

When I got my wheel for Christmas, I decided to spin up the rest of that original grey fiber. Since I had practiced with it a lot, I knew what I could do with it on a spindle, and I figured that it would give me a good idea what I could do on a wheel. I spun up two singles and plied them together, then fulled the yarn a little by dunking it in hot then cold water, which made it go from a fingering to more of a sport weight. It's tied with Knit Picks Palette, if that gives you a point of reference.

mmm... smooshy

I thought, since I had started with eight ounces, that I might have enough for socks, especially if I used the carbon color for heels and toes. I weighed the skein. Two ounces. 69 grams. Possibly enough for socks, especially with contrast heels and toes, but way less than I had expected. Who knew that I had spun six ounces already?

I pulled out the carbon merino, which was under four ounces since I had played with it some, too, and split it down the middle and spun half of it up onto a bobbin. I did spin it a little finer and a little more consistently than the heathered grey, but it felt like it took forever!

Four ounces is a lot of fiber! This late realization meant that I had greatly underestimated the amount of fiber I had ordered during The Great New Years Eve Etsy Raid of 2007. I got my first package today. Four four-ounce handpainted rovings from FatCatKnits. They're huge. And pretty. Good combo.

I started spinning up the Elfin Magic superwash merino already.

Isn't it delightful?

I had kind of intended to make a Baby Surprise Jacket with it, but I also wanted to try out the small whorl on my wheel, so, not surprisingly, it's coming out rather thin. Probably too thin for the BSJ. I'm thinking I'll Navaho ply it and make a stripy stockinette baby sweater. There are a couple of babies expected in February.


Considering I have 5 more 4 oz. rovings on the way, and new memberships to a couple of fiber clubs, I think I can hold off on the fiber consumption -- at least until shearing season at the ranch!