Yes indeed, this was all done by hand, unless you count a spinning wheel as a machine!

Toney Road Sweater

Pattern: My own with some serious help from Barbara Walker’s Knitting from the Top.
Yarn: My own handspun. A three ply yarn made from two plies of Toney Road fiber from The Little Barn and one of Royal Blue merino from Ohio Valley Natural fibers. Spun on the Lendrum.
Needles: Size 8 Crystal Palace circs
Spun and Knit: Started spinning sometime around Oct. 2007. Started knitting up 12/22/07. Knitting finished 1/17/08. Zipper install completed 3/16/08.

I almost can’t believe it. It’s finally finished! I was beginning to think I would never see the day that I could wear this sweater, but it has finally come. Despite an almost fatal fiber shortage, a small miracle and a first zipper installation, I finally have a sweater made completely by me from the yarn on up.

The zipper installation, while not exactly what I would call “fun”, wasn’t really that terrible. The hardest part was pinning everything in place. I decided to do one side at a time because I just couldn’t maneuver everything all at once.

Once one side was pinned in, I did a long basting stitch with needle and thread on the side of the zipper tape farthest from the zipper. I did another row of stitches, much smaller this time closer to the zipper teeth and a final row, somewhere in between in stitch size between the first two rows. I don’t think this sucker is going anywhere! And despite the pain of the sewing, the end result is totally worth it and I will, no doubt, be tackling a zipper install again in the future.

The sweater came out nearly exactly what I had in mind. The length in the torso is right where I wanted it, not too low, but not too short. The hem has enough ease so that it doesn’t bind along the hips.

The raglan increases that I used give a little bit of a lacey feel to an otherwise plain jane sweater. I was worried about them being too unstable to hold up the rest of the sweater, but so far they seem to be hanging in there nicely.

I wanted a big, fold over cuff and I definitely got that too. There won’t be any cold breezes going up the sleeves of this sweater!

One thing that I had considered and I wish I had done would have been to add in a couple of short rows in the back. It rides up a little bit there, but not enough to be super annoying anyway. I also probably could have done a slightly higher collar, but I was worried about having enough yarn at the time. In the end, that would have meant more zipper to sew in so I’m just as glad.

I learned a lot about spinning and knitting while working on this project. At the end of the process, I think I’ve done fairly well. There aren’t too many changes I would make. But I do know that I probably need to take my spinning to the next level now. This sweater is *really* heavy. It might be time to start learning about spinning a lighter yarn for a project like this. It’s kind of exciting to think that there is so much more to learn with these crafts!

I’m really happy with this sweater. It feels like a huge accomplishment to have made something so large with my handspun. Not only that, I conquered my first zipper! I think I’ll be wearing this one for a long time to come.

Tags: Handspun, sweaters

Those of you considering moving in less than a week from the time you find out you need to move? I highly suggest not doing it!

In all honestly, despite the time crunch, the move went well thanks to the help of my parents, several friends and one hired strong young person. Mother nature wasn’t too kind as it didn’t get above 30 degrees for the entire weekend, we had mini blizzards while packing the Uhaul (which gave me flashbacks to my undergrad days up in Western NY. “It’s snowing! Sideways!!”) and it seemed like every time someone walked out the door the wind picked up. I *never* want to be cold again, but unless I move much farther south I know that ain’t happenin’ and believe me when I say I don’t want to move again any time soon!! Amazingly, there was only one casualty, which was totally my fault (I broke the porcelain shade of a lamp that belonged to my grandmother), and only one meltdown as a result despite the fact that the back of the Uhaul looked like someone had hit the “tumble dry” button when we opened it at the new place. Well, there was another small meltdown, but it involved a very helpful monkey that belongs to my new neighbor and it was brutally cold so that totally doesn’t count. Incidentally, I really wish I’d had my wits and my camera handy to document Kat’s help. She was pretty darn good!

The upside in all of this is that the new place is great and we are almost fully unpacked (pictures soon). My commute so far has been, dare I say it, completely and utterly amazing! Depending on which train I take, it’s only an hour door to door now for me. The first day I tried it I left home in daylight and came home in daylight too. I thought I was on another planet for sure! Unfortunately, HWJF hasn’t been as lucky as me since he hasn’t actually started the new job yet and it looks like he will need to continue going back to the old area to train his replacement. *sigh* We just can’t both be happy at once it seems. Soon. Hopefully. I even walked home from the train station the first day. It wasn’t bad, but I won’t be doing it in the dark or the freezing cold any time soon, that’s for sure.

In between all the craziness of the last couple of weeks there actually has been a bit of knitting progress, believe it or not. The short commute is seriously cutting into my knitting time (not that I mind!) so I fear that my production schedule might be a little different in the future, but time will tell. I actually finished up the knitting on the Toney Road sweater just before we moved. It needs a block and then I can start searching for a zipper. Of course that requires my blocking board extra bed to be set up and available. (Also forthcoming on the pic).

While my head was still swimming from everything that was going on around me, the moebius made good commute knitting.

It also made good knitting at my first SnB at Modern Yarn! Definitely a good time and great to see some familiar faces.

Now I just have to figure out how to graft in garter stitch.

With these two projects in the final stages I’m already planning the next sweater.

I just have to decide if this is the right color and yarn for it. I better decide fast because I need something new for the commute, pronto!

Tags: ez, Moebius, moving, sweaters

My mini post from yesterday and today’s post should convince you that I was serious about the goals I listed in my first post of the year. I realized later that I should have added “conquer a zipper installation” to that list when I thought about this:

The Toney Road sweater is finally on the needles! I cast on for this right after I finished the Barbizon Jacket and I’m just getting around to blogging about it now, so I’ve already made some good progress. If you’re new here, I’m knitting this sweater with my own three-ply merino handspun yarn, the name of which came from the main fiber I used. It’s pretty thick and squishy yarn, so I’m getting a gauge of 4 sts to the inch on size 8 needles. That’s seriously huge compared to the last two sweaters that came off my needles! And I have to say, there is definitely something very “organic” about knitting with your own handspun on bamboo needles. The fact that this is a fairly straightforward knit thus far isn’t really bothering me, and I think that is the reason why.

Thanks to Jody, I’m getting some help from Barbara Walker’s Knitting from the Top on this one. I’ve used her calculations for proportions as a guide although I haven’t really followed her instructions strictly. There’s a bit in there about knitting for a while until you get to the right throat depth, which I never quite “got” no matter how many times I read it. I didn’t worry about that so much and just cast on the number of stitches I needed for the collar and so far things look ok. Hopefully my ignorance won’t come back to bite me in the you-know-what later.

I’ve used a lifted increase on either side of a “seam” stitch for the raglan shaping. I’m a little worried that this may not have been a good choice in the long run due to the weight of the yarn, but time will tell there too.

I had thought about adding a cable here or there or some sort of interesting lace somewhere, but honestly, I think I’m just going to keep this one simple. The yarn can speak for itself a little more if there isn’t anything to distract from it, and this sweater is almost all about the yarn. Well… that and the coming zipper installation…(!)

Tags: Handspun, sweaters

Remember how I talked about how a finished handspun yarn can sometimes be the FO? This time that certainly doesn’t apply. But check it out!

I finished the yarn for the Toney Sweater! After a good deal of time spinning and a small miracle I have about 1388 yards of three ply merino goodness to wrap myself in!

The skeins average about 10 wpi, a nice worsted weight. It is soft and squishy and takes forever to dry but I don’t care, it’s mine and I love it!

The next step is planning the sweater I’ll knit with it. I want something fairly simple that will show off the yarn without too much silliness. I like the shape of Rosedale and the way the collar turns over. And the zipper. But installing a zipper? That frightens me greatly. Especially since the one and only time I put a zipper in a sweater some other very nice person helped me do it on her sewing machine. And friends, I do not own a sewing machine because they scare me even more than zippers! *sigh* I may have a lot of hand stitching in my future.

Needless to say the self stripping of Rosedale won’t be happening with this yarn. I’ll also want to knit it top down just in case there is a yardage issue. And maybe throw in a cable somewhere. Luckily Jody was nice enough to loan me her copy of Knitting from the Top. I think there’s going to be a bit of studying to do before this one actually hits the needles. But that’s ok. I still have to finish Barbizon.

How many days until Christmas?!?

*And apparently, Bloglines has taken it upon themselves to be scrooge today! Update my feed dangit!

Tags: handspun sweater

What do you say about a thing so wonderful? It seems like we wait all year for this and in the blink of an eye, it’s over. I was quite sad leaving the grounds yesterday, but I have a lot of great memories and fiber to keep my consoled until next time.

Unfortunately it seems that I had a serious dose of camnesia during the majority of the festival so there aren’t many pics “during” but I definitely have several “after”. Kristy and I arrived just after 8am and went right in to find this glorious sight:

Pristine wall ‘o STR. It didn’t stay that way for long. Trust me. Neither of us made a purchase there deciding that we had plenty sitting on the shelf at home. We then went over to the Little Barn booth and a Rhinebeck miracle happened. Remember the fiber that I was spinning and wanted to make a sweater out of? Remember how I ran out?

THEY HAD IT!!!

Much bouncing up and down and squeeing was the result. They were ready to take my money early so I once again was going back to the car before 9am. I guess I’m just a power shopper. Besides the Toney Road fiber I bought mostly undyed stuff. That should keep me busy for a while.

After that we ended up meeting up with Ann and our trio did our leisurely turns through each barn while Kristy checked things off on her list and made notes for later. There were several purchases along the way of course. Before we knew it, we needed some nourishment and ended up having lunch with Jody and her friends. Then it was time for the blogger meet-up where I did manage a couple of pictures.

I got to meet Debby and her photographer husband which was very nice.

I caught up with Julie again. She was easy to find with the Steeler’s hat.

There was a chance for a Jersey girls group shot with Kim, Deb and Kristy.

And I just had to get a picture with Jess who presented me with the most beautiful pair of hand cranked socks (I won them in a blog contest she had. Yes, again. I am banned from contests on her blog for a while. )! They couldn’t be a more perfect color and look:

They fit like a dream! You should really check out the picot edge too. I will be treasuring these for some time to come. And she even included this:

Too cute! Thanks again Jess!!

After the meet up I got to spend some time with my Mom while more wandering and more purchases were accomplished. Eventually Mom went home and Kristy and I made our way out of the festival for dinner and then headed over to Morehouse. I was shocked and saddened to learn that they will no longer be maintaining the brick and mortar store in the near future. Apparently the online business has made it too much for the staff to handle. That news sorely tempted me into snatching up some yarn, but I let Kristy do it instead.

We then made our way over to the Ravelry party (thank goodness I had enough brains to bring the GPS. I never would have found it otherwise) which was a ton of fun even if it was a bit crowded. While I was skeptical in the beginning, I’m very appreciative of what is going on with this amazing resource and what it has done for the fiber community. I was even gifted with this:

A beautiful wool/mohair/angora roving from PoMo Golightly. She sadly found out she was allergic to the angora the hard way and decided to just give it all away. Ann remembered I was a spinner and I became the lucky recipient! Thank you again!! At the end of the party we went out on the patio to cool down and did a little more knitting and talking fiber with Tina and her lovely sherpa husband before heading home. It was the perfect ending to a perfect day.

On Sunday I sadly said goodbye to Kristy, dropped her off at the train station and headed back over to the festival. I met up with Risa fairly early on and spent most of the day making sure that she didn’t loose her Crazy Fiber Lady reputation. I mean, she only had one skein of lace weight when I first saw her. Totally unacceptable!! I briefly ran into Eklectica and Tina as well as Brooke and several others (sorry if I’m forgetting you!) who I had not had much chance to talk to or had missed during the first day and yet there are still people I didn’t get to see or meet! If it weren’t for the fact that I was nearly crippled from all the walking or standing, I would really wish there were a couple more days for this festival.

Monday I was lucky enough to be able to take the day off work, so my Mom drove me back to NJ and we had lunch outside with a certain new family member:

ETA: That’s Sandy, my Mom’s Brussels Griffon.

Who also got to meet her “niece”.

Believe it or not, it was a very quiet and polite meeting (although the picture doesn’t quite capture it that way). I’m still shocked about that.

Re-entry will not be an easy task today, but I definitely have a wonderful weekend to look back on.

So what else did I buy you ask? From Cloverleaf Farm:

Merino/Silk (on the left in the reds and pinks) and BFL.

Ingeo (a corn fiber) to spin up into something nice for my Mom.

Some bamboo, also intended to be used for my Mom. The color is much more brown and coppery than I could capture here.

I did buy one skein of yarn, but it is a gift for a friend, so I’m not going to post it here.

Two grafton batts from Seaport Yarns. I snatched these up early and hope they’ll become enough for a nice shawl.

I ended the festival purchases with this pumpkin colored merino for the boy I left at home.

Risa and I ended the day on Sunday with smoothies that I just had to snap a pic of:

All drinks are better when they come with umbrellas.

Oh yeah. And one other thing followed me home:

As I said in the last post, there’s been quite a bit of spinning going on around here lately. Some of these skeins are from a few months back that I never even got to share with you! (Remember, all pics can be clicked for bigger!) For instance:

That’s some greenish cormo that I got at MDS&W this year. I was so looking forward to spinning this and was sorely disappointed when I did. There was a TON of VM (vegetable matter) in the fiber and it made spinning it such a pain that I finished it off and plied it up in about a day and a half (I would normally give everything at least a day after finishing spinning to settle on the bobbin before plying). It had great potential and I could tell that from spinning it, but it was so awful to work with I just had to get it out of my sight! It made a lovely squishy yarn though and I may still make some mittens or something with it.

I also spun up the last of the fiber I dyed in my dyeing class:

It was really fun to see how the colors worked out on this one.

Then there are the skeins I entered in the skein competition:

I used one of these three ply Alpaca skeins. I really enjoyed spinning this stuff. It was a bit of a trick to get used to because the fiber is so incredibly soft and slick, but once I figured it out it was a real joy. The skeins are soft and cushy and I think they might make a nice pair of wrist-warmers for the office or something. Here’s a closeup just because I love how these came out so much (and one won first place!):

Then there was this grafton fibers batt:

That became this yarn that won second place:

This batt was such a dream to spin! So well prepared and easy to draft and so damn pretty. The pictures really don’t do the iridescent quality of the colors justice. I was able to spin the thinnest single I’ve made to date with this stuff because it was so easy to work with. You can bet I’ll be getting some more this weekend. Here’s another shot just because I like it so much:

Now for the more recent stuff. I finally got up the courage to spin up the silk caps that I picked up at MDS&W. I read a couple of articles online and went to work. I must say, I did not enjoy it one bit. The drafting felt like ripping hair out of someone’s head. The fibers are so strong they even cut my fingers while I was drafting at one point! This was another case where I just wanted to get it over with, so I spun up both caps, one on each bobbin and plied them together. I only got about 70 yards. It looks like this:

Ugh. I was hoping for a yarn I could use to knit something for my wool allergic mother. I may try and find some hankies at Rhinebeck and give it another go, but I’m definitely not going to spend a ton of cash on them. If there are any expert silk spinners out there, do send along some hints!

The next two skeins were also from fiber picked up at MDS&W. This time, one of my favorites and the featured breed at Rhinebeck this year, BFL. The fiber came from Cloverleaf Farms and I will certainly be picking up more from them if they are at the festival this weekend.

Redwoods

Emerald City

These both came out to be just under 400 yards. Probably good for socks or a small shawl. I seem to have a tendency with some things to just spin and feel as though the skein is the finished object, so these may sit on the shelf for a while.

Finally, I finished up the fiber for the Toney Sweater. Here’s what the first skein turned out like:

And here’s the last on the niddy noddy:

The bad news: I only ended up with about 700 yards which is definitely not enough for a sweater for me. I still have about 8 oz. of the solid royal blue colored fiber which I could spin up three ply to match, but I think the contrast would be too great. I may try to find something complementary to go with it this weekend, but I’m fairly certain that is going to be tough if not nearly impossible. I’m really bummed about this. Any thoughts on what I could do with 700 yards of 3-ply merino yarn? You know… besides just petting it and loving it unendingly.

Next time, an important anniversary and a contest!

I’m baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak! I’ve enjoyed my little computer vacation, but I certainly did miss you all! It was weird in a way. Even after the first day, I immediately felt like I was “out of touch” with what was going on in the blog world. But I got some good stuff done and did some relaxing and I’m very glad for that.

Thank you for all the nice comments on my last post too. It certainly wasn’t written to solicit the response it received, but I do appreciate it! I’ve pretty much put the SOS behind me at this point (although I’m still trying to get a couple of addresses and a prize taken care of) and I’m happily moving on to other things.

I did a lot of spinning in my free evenings this past week. I usually try to follow a schedule where, since I have a lot of knitting time during my commute and my breaks during the day, I spin at night since I can’t do that on the road. I got a lot accomplished on the way to making the yarn for my Toney Sweater, but something else helped me accomplish even more:

Spin Out 2007!

Yep. I schlepped my wheel and all my gear to NYC this past Saturday to spin in Central Park with other like minded folks. I also did a bit of playing tour guide. Tina decided to come down for the event and wasn’t totally confident with the NYC subway system, so I offered to help her and her friend Carolyn and her boyfriend get over to the park. Little did they know that I could be totally inept at a moments notice and ended up putting us on an express train that brought us to 125th instead of 72nd! Oops! After a bit of a turn around, a long wait and a re-consulting of the subway map, we finally made it to the site about 45 min. late. But what the wait was worth it. Look at all the spinners!

There where wheels galore, many of them Lendrum’s like mine, spindles and people just came to knit and hang out. We became quite a spectacle and as people went by they stopped to ask questions and sometimes got an impromptu lesson or two. The response from the muggles was almost as fascinating as the spinners themselves.

The weather and the view couldn’t have been more perfect.

While I am incredibly sore from dragging all that stuff all over NYC (note to self, while the Lendrum may be “portable”, a luggage cart would have been a good choice!) I’m so glad I went! It takes a lot to get me to go back to NYC on my days off, but this was definitely worth the sacrifice. I finished off two of the three bobbins I’ll be using for me first skein for the Toney Sweater! I really can’t wait to see how the first skein of yarn turns out.

There’s lots more to tell you about from the past week. Here’s a teaser of what you’ll be reading about:

Much more next time!

…begins with a swatch. After my recent success in spinning I’ve finally gotten up the courage to take the leap and start spinning my own yarn for a sweater for myself. Not an entirely monumental task, but not a small one all the same.

I surveyed the fiber stash and remembered two different 1 pound lots of merino fiber that I bought at this year’s Maryland Sheep and Wool. The first is from the “Toney road collection” and was purchased from The Little Barn (a favorite fiber supplier of mine thanks to an introduction by Risa last year at Rhinebeck). There is blue mixed with several other colors in this fiber. While it’s very pretty as roving and also very pretty spun up, I thought it might be a bit too dull for my tastes by itself.

Enter fiber that I bought from Ohio Valley Natural Fibers. A lovely royal blue that would coordinate quite well with the Toney road and brighten it up a bit.

I want the yarn for this to be near a worsted weight and to be nice and round and warm. That all means three ply is the way to go. So I put a plan in action. I’ll spin two bobbins of the Toney road fiber and one of the Ohio fiber and ply them together. I decided to do a little test before I jumped in with both feet. I took a small length of each fiber, spun it one night, plyed it the next and gave it a wash. When dry, I knit up the swatch below. I used US size 7 Crystal Palace Bamboo circs and did some garter stitch on the edges to eliminate some of the tendency to curl.

At first I thought the yarn might be too thick, but the more I worked with it the more I liked it. I have been knitting socks all summer after all (and even before the summer!) so just about anything would feel thick right now. The fabric is flexible, which I thought was important, and the yarn has a nice spring to it. I have a small fear of it getting to be too heavy in a large garment, but once again, I don’t have much to go on right now. I mean, even the current sweater in progress is dk weight, not worsted!

So what do you think? Does insanity reign here at Zarzuela Knits? On second thought, don’t answer that.

ETA: This is a long term project and most definitely *not* being considered for Rhinebeck. I may be crazy, but I’m not suicidal!

*I have no idea how many stitches are really in a sweater my size and honestly, I don’t think I want to know! I just thought it would be a catchy title.