Thanks so much for all the Birthday wishes for Stitches! I think she had a good day. She went from a quiet day:

To a much more fun day pretty quickly!

There’s even a short video.

I spent the rest of the weekend going to visit my old stomping grounds with Sharon and Sairy. Much fun! In the process (and despite a little goof on my part) I also managed to finish these:

Endpaper Mitts

Pattern: Endpaper Mitts by Euny Jang
Yarn: Handspun Merino/Tencel
Needles: Size 1 and 2 addi lace and knitpicks respectively
Knit: 1.30-2.8.2009
Mods: I used a long tail cast on and a stretchy bind off instead of the ones that were recommended in the pattern

This was a really fun knit! The pattern is interesting enough to keep you going without being overly complicated. These really made perfect train knitting since the charts were pretty small and easy to balance on the lap while traveling. I think they worked out perfectly with this handspun too.

There’s nothing quite like working with handspun. Especially your own handspun! There’s just a spring and a life to it that commercial yarn could never replicate. I may be a little bit sorry that I didn’t try out the recommended cast on and bind off, but I think they worked out ok. I think they’ll be a good length for those chilly spring mornings too.

I had hoped for a daylight photo shoot but I got home too late. This is the best I could do.

I still have a bunch of yarn leftover too… about 68 grams of each color.

I think a shorter pair of mitts are in the future, but for now I’m on to trying to finish a certain sweater before next week:

And started another colorwork project. Stay tuned!

P.S. OMG!! My shop got mentioned on Lime ‘n Violet!!

Tags: friends, Handspun, mitts

With the Summer of Socks 2008 kicking off in just over a week it’s time to share what will probably be my last finished pair of socks before then!

Nutkins

Pattern: Nutkin Sock by Beth LaPensee
Yarn: My own BFL handdyed and handspun 2 ply yarn, Study in Blues colorway
Needles: size 1 addi lace
Knit: May 14-30, 2008
Mods: I decided to knit an eye of partridge heel flap instead of the short row heel called for in the pattern, just because I felt like it.

What a great pattern! I don’t quite know why, but after seeing another pair or two of these on Ravelry I finally knew what I was going to make with this handspun yarn. Well actually I do know why now. It’s a fun pattern that’s easy to memorize, looks great with handspun and was simply a joy to knit!

Despite my usual tendencies I did knit this one top down and was happy to do so since I knew I had plenty of yarn. I really like the fold over hem on this sock. It almost totally eliminates the need to worry about how loose your cast on is when you start the sock and makes a nice finished edge. It’s a little bit fiddly to do, but I think the result is totally worth it. I may try to incorporate this element into future socks.

As suggested in the Ravelry page for this pattern, this sock does have a slight tendency to bias. I didn’t find that to be problematic, but I must have done the hem on the cuff well enough to avoid big problems. If that’s something that bothers you or you try to use an overly twisted handspun yarn, you might want to steer clear of this one. I was very happy with my resulting socks after a good blocking and I love how the colors worked out. If there weren’t so many great sock patterns out there to knit, I might do this one again!

Since I’ve finished these socks I’ve started one of my own design. Here’s a little peak:

More on those when they are ready.

I hope you all have a great weekend! Mine will be filled with fiber, friends and wishing my Dad a Happy Father’s Day.

P.S. Would anyone out there be interested in taking over ownership of the Musicians Who Knit and Crochet webring? It has been sadly neglected for some time and I think it deserves better so I’m going to have to let it go. Let me know if you’re interested!

Tags: Handspun, Socks

I seem to buy a good deal of my yarns either at fiber festivals or on vacation. There’s just something about having a great yarn to be a great reminder of a fun day or trip that holds memories for me, almost better than photos. I can relive some of my happiest moments as I knit my next garment and continue the flow of memories as I knit new memories into that garment. It seems that wool is a good holder for my thoughts these days, so I did a little bit of stash enhancement on the trip.

As you can imagine, my happiness with last year’s Bovidae yarns and the resulting sweater necessitated a new purchase.

The colors you see from left to right are Wild Grape, Thistle, Natural Light Gray (there are actually 5 skeins of that), Wild Aster, Rosebay and Peacock. The Gray will be the background color of what I hope will be my first steeked cardigan with some sort of fair isle yoke incorporating each of these colors and perhaps some that were left over from last year’s sweater.

On the same day as the trip to Bovidae my compatriots and I also made a quick stop at Yummi Yarns in Burnsville. This is another lovely shop, packed to the gills with amazing yarns. One of the members of my party was a new knitter who hadn’t quite seen anything like it before and the enabler in my loved watching her glee as she petted lovely yarns and oooooed and ahhhhed. I managed to restrain myself enough to only pick up a bottle of Eucalan (you wouldn’t believe how hard it’s been to find that locally) and this:

I have succumbed to the Noro bug. There are just too many gorgeous pairs of socks out there knit in this yarn, knots or not. I consider this my little indulgence.

On my trip to Earth Guild on our day off during camp (which really is a fantastic store that must be experienced in person) I picked up some wheel oil and a copy of Traditional Fair Isle Knitting by Sheila McGregor. I had purchased Traditional Scandinavian Knitting by the same author last year and can’t wait to use this book in much the same way.

After we left camp this year we actually were able to take our time getting home. We definitely took the scenic route, winding through some of the back roads around tight corners and some steep slopes until we made our way into Blowing Rock, NC. It’s a cute little touristy town with some nice little shops on the main drag, although I wouldn’t actually recommending going to the actual “Blowing Rock” because it’s a bit of a let down after the brochure hype (trust me on that one). While we wandered the shops we happened upon Dee’s Yarn Nook which was a cute little store with a nice variety of products and a nice little seating area on the porch for boys-who-tolerate-yarn-stores-but-maybe-need-to-make-a-phone-call-or-something. That’s where I finally broke down and bought one of these:

Yep. That’s my first Barbara Walker bible. They didn’t have the first one or I may have bought that too. I think this book could be really dangerous. I already have several ideas for sock patterns.

After Blowing Rock it was a short drive to Boone. By this time it was getting pretty hot and sticky and we were in search of relief in the form of ice cream. [side note: those of you in the north east who have been dealing with this wicked heat wave- you totally have my permission to blame me for the awful weather. It was perfect the whole time we were away except for one day of rain and the last couple of days we were down there. I fully believe it hitched a ride on the back of our car as we made our way home and we couldn't defend ourselves since we couldn't see out the back of the car. Mea culpa.] Our faithful GPS (a.k.a. Gromitt) lead us to a Marble Slab (apparently the southern equivalent of Cold Stone) in a mall in which HWJF suddenly noted a huge sign for YARN right next door! I love that we found yarn even when it was the furthest thing from our minds! Turns out it was Laura’s Yarn Tastic which was another lovely (air conditioned!) store full of fantastic yarns and even a little bit of spinning fiber. I resisted the urge to buy a sweater’s worth of Blue Sky Cotton and instead ended up with…

more sock yarn! Miss Babs Hand-Painted Sock and Baby to be exact. The colors in this one just couldn’t be ignored.

I definitely thought I was pretty restrained with my yarn purchases this time around. Perhaps the new wheel had something to do with that. Speaking of which, that isn’t all the yarn I came home with! Some of the fiber I brought with me actually turned into yarn too. For instance, remember how I saw some tulips and hydrangeas in the park one day? I dyed the fiber before I left.

And made it into my first spin on the ladybug.

That’s 360 yards of BFL goodness at about fingering weight. The purple needed to be a bit bluer to match what I was going for but I’m pretty happy with how the colors played out in the finished yarn. And I totally loves me the Ladybug!

I also brought a pound of some wool from sheep named Khalu I had purchased from a local farm with me and spun it up into this:

All told there is about 542 yards of this Rambouillet/Columbia/Dorset cross in this lovely dark chocolate brown. I spun it to a good worsted weight and after washing it bloomed really nicely and has a great bounce to it. It isn’t next to the skin soft, but it isn’t super scratchy either.

Finally I also spun up another pound of something that definitely isn’t for me.

All together there is about 696 yards of this 100% merino in a nice bright orange. I tried to spin this with a little less twist in both the plying and the spinning to retain it’s lovely softness. I picked this up at Rhinebeck last year from The Sheepshed with HWJF in mind. It definitely isn’t going to work for socks, so we’ll have to figure something else out.

Well I hope you’ve gotten your fill of delicious yarns with this post today. On Friday I’ll prove that I really did do some knitting. Honest!

Tags: Handspun, Spinning, Stash, Travel, yarns

Psst! Don’t forget you only have a couple of days left to enter the contest! I’ve only got one entry so far so your chances of winning an awesome prize are pretty darn good! Get those entries in!

Thanks for all the kind and interesting comments on my Earth Day post from yesterday! I wasn’t entirely sure how that was going to go over, and it was nice to see it met with some enthusiasm. Sometimes I just throw stuff out there on the old blog and hold my breath until the feedback starts. It’s always nice when it’s positive!

Despite my issues with the Bog Jacket, not all my knitting has been so difficult lately. As Spring has been popping up around me, Adamas has been growing!

This has actually been a really pleasant knit. I think the handspun yarn combined with the color and the pattern is working out quite nicely. The yarn has a good bounce and will probably take the heavy blocking this piece will require quite well. There are a few weak parts I’m slightly concerned about, but I know enough to be careful.

Adamas has been going to work with me lately. The chart isn’t so complicated that it’s impossible for train knitting. I really shouldn’t even need it at this point, but I just always seem to need to look at it to get those first few stitches going. After that I usually don’t need it again until the end of the row.

And holy geez are these rows getting long! It look the entire first leg of my train ride into work the other day to get through one purl row. Yikes! I was hoping to finish this up for a special event this coming weekend, but I just don’t think I’m going to make it. As of this writing I have one more repeat to go of the main pattern, then the final 12 rows and the bindoff. I even inserted a lifeline at the end of the last repeat (mostly because I did not want another episode of what happened with Kiri last year!), just in case I find myself without enough yarn for all that. It was easy with the knitpicks needles since they have that little hole to slip some dental floss into. I never understood what people meant by that until I got the needles, so here’s a picture:

Clicky to biggie as always.

I suppose I could get it done if I ignore everything else…

… but how could anyone ignore those faces!!

Tags: Handspun, shawls

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

That’s the name of the game with this new FO!

Pattern: Moebius from Knitting Around by EZ
Yarn: Handspun merino in the Elektra colorway from Lisa Sousa. Spun way back here.
Needles: Size 6 crystal palace bamboo circs
Knit:1/5-1/30/2008
Mods: Not really a mod but I knit it with the build in i-cord border.

There are approximately 80 gagillion ways to wear this thing and I love it! It’s cozy, soft and warm and perfect for when you just need that little something more to make you really toasty. I’ve been wearing it around my neck in the house just to take the chill off. I’ve worn it to work under my coat as a scarf in place of something long and dangly when I don’t need that (and it just happens to match my brand new coat pretty darn well). I haven’t had the opportunity yet, but I can imagine pulling it around my face when I’m walking home and my nose and cheeks are freezing in the evening. I can even imagine a *really* cold day where I’ll pull it over my head and put a hat on over top of it for another layer of warmth and protection for my ears. What I can’t imagine is a more versatile garment!

If you have a small skein of handspun sitting around that you don’t know what to do with, I’d highly recommend this project. It shows off the yarn and makes a very usable item. I just cast on and knit until I only had enough left over for the grafting.

About that – you’ll notice there’s no closeup pic. It didn’t exactly go well. For some reason I just couldn’t get my head around grafting in garter stitch. I think I have the idea now though and next time will be better. For now, it’s together and serving its purpose quite well I think.

Now go forth and make one for yourself! There’s plenty of winter left for it.

Tags: ez, garter, Handspun, Moebius

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