Lavori 07/30 regress report

I think I'm probably gonna back out my changes to round 163 and 165.  I'll follow the second charted rep for rounds 165/167/169.  Round 171 will have one extra hex mesh motif.  I'll keep following the same decrease pattern and do my kludging at the end.

This means I'll have a few more stitches than charted for some of those rounds.  Dunno if that'll do anything to the way the blocked doily is distorted in that area.

Why I'm doing it -- I'd like a clean finish to this area of hex mesh.  I'd like the edge decreases to be symmetric and consistently angled (though a consistent rate of decreases isn't going to be all that noticeable).  I'd like to finish the hex mesh area with a single motif of k2t-yox2-skp rather than yo-skp-k2t-yo.  Also, I believe (hopefully correctly) that it might be easier to adjust in the area where the hex mesh transitions of a column of yo-sk2p-yo.

So.  This is the problem:  In round 163, there are 7 reps of the hex mesh motif.  The decrease pattern supports the typical thing of reducing one hex mesh motif per pattern round, alternating k2t-yox2-skp with yo-skp-k2t-yo.

As charted, this does not work.  I can make the stitch count work (which I did with my original changes).  But then I'm offset on the hex mesh.  That cascades upward.

The symmetry means that I should be going from 7 reps, 6, 5, 4, etc., with the odd numbers being k2t-yox2-skp and the evens being yo-skp-k2t-yo.  Round 171 compared to round 163 means that one of these is missing, that I go 7, 5, 4, 3, etc., with 6 being missing.

So I'm going to go back.  I'll have one more hex mesh motif than charted in 171.  But hopefully I can at that point continue to decrease in pattern, so that I end up with a final section of k2t-yox2-skp before the final double-decreases that close the section.  I might have to be a little bit creative with edge decreases and how they merge with the leaf tip closures, too.  I also see a few symmetry inconsistencies that will probably turn out to be chart typos in addition to all of that.

I might be cussing at myself by the time I reach round 180 or so, but I'm already cussing at myself at round 167.

If I go back to round 164 (and re-pick up the second yarnover at the edges of the hex mesh sections), then this is a doily regress report.  If I do the smart thing and test out a few ideas in actual needle and yarn before committing to anything, then this is a doily hiatus report.

In other yarn news, the travel shawl project is almost at the end of the second skein of yarn.  It's not going to be a very large shawl, apparently.  Oh, well.  I'll block it a bit bigger and it'll be more of a shawlette than an encompassing giant shawl like the alpaca one I finished a while back.

My weaving is going reasonably well, too.  I'm gradually getting more consistent and a bit faster.

On arrogance (aka pride goeth before a fall)

I put my fix in place for the Lavori 07/30 doily -- dropping the double-yarnover from round 163, and turning the edge stitches in round 165 also into the double decrease with one yarnover.

The number of stitches matches up for what I need for round 167.  (I'll have to move the last stitch of 166 to the beginning of 167, but that's something that the chart didn't note, either, when it disappears from the end of the chart before beginning 169.)

However, even though I have the right number of stitches, I don't think it's set up properly for the hex mesh pattern.

Ugh.  I really should have done a little knitted sample to make sure it would work.  Why didn't I even notice this earlier while I was charting things out on graph paper?

I guess I'll probably continue kludging my way upward in the pattern until I can get it to align properly.  Round 173 is the point where it would be nice to have it match if I can't get it there by round 171.

Part of the problem is how the hex mesh is aligned on each row and how many reps there are (kind of an even/odd/symmetry thing).

I had felt very smug, and now I feel like an idiot.  Not the first time, and no doubt not the last.  But it's still kind of humbling each time it happens.

Now to figure out what to do for round 167, and its effects on round 169 and then 171.  Harumph.  I'll take out rounds of knitting if I have to, as far back as necessary, but only if it helps.  I'd rather kludge my way forward if possible.

Maybe this is part of why some Niebling patterns are really strange in their hex mesh edge effects.

Ah, well.  I'll try to remain humble.  No doubt this doily will provide more lessons to remind me.

First baby steps in weaving

My first weaving project on the Tia rigid heddle loom

The Tia loom is warped and I'm weaving.  Yikes!

The above pic is the loom with the warp wound on the back.  The loops from the direct warping haven't yet been cut, meaning that the yarn is doubled in the slits but nothing is in the holes.

The above pic shows the warp fully sleyed through the heddle and tied onto the front.  I didn't bother with a surgeon's knot, just a plain bow knot of the sort used to tie shoes.  I did 8 threads per bundle since that's about an inch.  The last bits of that skein of Sugar n Cream were just sitting there, so I ran it through the base of the warp to help start spreading things out more evenly, and also to double-check that things were more or less doing what they ought to in terms of what threads were where, did the heddle do anything useful, was the tension more or less OK, and stuff like that.

And here's the first bits of weaving I've done as well as the first weaving I've done on this loom.  The angle of the pic is funny so not all the details are visible or the perspective is weird, that sort of thing.

The red cotton is a little thinner than the white.  So although the weave looks balanced and seems to be pretty close to balanced when I measure the picks per inch, when I look more closely it's slightly warp-faced.  Every now and then I don't quite pack it evenly, so there will be a little stripe of white or red.  Eh, I don't care.  I'll see how it looks when off the loom and finished.  It seems awfully gauzy for now, but I'm under the impression that's kind of normal.

It's taking a few inches for me to figure out how tight to keep things so the selvedges look OK, not too loose and not too tight.  In spite of that, the edges are really surprisingly straight, not pulling in or anything.  I'm sure they aren't professional grade or anything, but for beginner edges, they're not too bad.

In the first few picks, I sometimes improperly skipped over or under a warp thread.  Hopefully I can keep better track of this so I can fix problems quickly.  For the very beginning of the cloth, where the warp is still finding its happy spacing, I don't really care.

It looks a bit different depending on the angle -- more red or more white, depending.

I'm not sure how tight a tension this loom will hold.  But it seems OK.  It's not uber-tight tension but the warp doesn't seem to be loosening as I weave or anything.

Yay.  I'll keep weaving and will no doubt learn more things as I continue with this first project.

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Sweater project

I was swatching for the upcoming sweater today.  Last time I knit with the fuzzy gray handspun, I got 4.5 st/in on 3.25mm needles.  Today, I'm getting 4 st/in on 3mm needles.  Sigh.  The fabric seems fine, not too loose nor uber-stiff.  If I go down too much more in needle size, the stitches all start splitting and being difficult.  Also, I need to have enough different needle lengths for both the sweater body and the ribbing.

So.  Maybe this particular ball is a little thicker than some of the others, and the real gauge over several skeins of yarn ends up averaging about 4.5 st/in.  Or the fuzzy yarn fills in the spaces, the way mohair does, and it's really effectively closer to worsted weight yarn.  Or I'm just knitting more loosely these days.  Or I'm using a different tape measure that doesn't match the tape measure I used earlier, and my gauge is really the same.

Also, gauge swatches always lie.  Maybe they don't for some people, but I don't have a good track record of getting them to match the garment gauge even though I don't think I'm doing anything different when I make the gauge swatch.

I'll probably cast on a likely number of stitches and get started.  The lower part of the sweater will be my gauge swatch.  I'm not bothered by knitting and then unraveling a few thousand stitches if I don't like how it's going.  Depending on the real gauge vs the swatch gauge, I can do some discreet increases or decreases.  Or I can make this for someone else -- I know a few people who'd be delighted to have one of my handknit sweaters.

Lavori 07/30

It's time to test my potential chart fix.  I want to be making progress on this doily!

F&F Travel Shawl

Growing nicely.  I'm on the second ball of yarn, and doing 3 sets of feather and fan on each half of the shawl.  It is still a very reasonable combination of yarn, pattern, needle size, etc.

Spinning

Nothing new has been started yet.

Thinking out loud and counting stitches (Lavori 07/30)

Lavori 07/30 doily progress/discussion

I'm finally playing around with the chart for Lavori 07/30, to figure out what needs to happen in the area with hex mesh, to get from the stitch count of round 163 to the stitch count of round 171.

As discussed in the last post, the chart as written does not work.  The first rep of round 165 is consistent with the stitches needed by round 171, but is not consistent with the existing number of stitches from round 163.  The second rep of round 165 is the opposite -- it is consistent with the stitches of round 163 but not consistent with what I'll need in round 171.  The second charted section has one extra repeat of hex mesh compared to the first charted section.

Both of them need to be the same at this point since the chart already unofficially has 12 pattern repeats per round (2 repeats charted, in the current 6PR/rnd chart) and will officially transition to a chart that is explicitly a 12 PR/rnd chart on round 171.

So I'm counting beginning and ending stitches for that section of rounds 163, 165, 167, 169, and 171.  I've knit through round 164, but can do some small stitch adjustments and/or will take out as many rounds as I need to in order to make it work.  Yes, all 800+ stitches per round, bleh.

One thing I've noticed from the magazine photos (the cover and page 17) is that the stitches there are very distorted at this point.  The outer fans will soon start, the leaf motifs will separate into two (surrounding the fans), and the hex mesh will continue to decrease at both edges.  The stacked increases and decreases distort the fabric in ways that mostly enhance the overall aesthetics of the design.  They exist whether or not they're aesthetic, of course.

Anyway, this distortion is happening right where the hex mesh is.  Which means that any fix I do doesn't need to be perfect.  It won't be all that obvious given all the other stuff going on at the moment.

The above photo from page 17 shows the approximate area (circled in red).

And the above shows the photo from the front cover.  It's kind of hard for me to see exactly how many repeats of hex mesh there are and whether all of the holes are single or double yarnovers and whether edge decreases are single or double decreases.  It's also not at all clear to me what the test knitters did to make the pattern work.  Whatever they decided didn't end up in the published charts, apparently!

I'm sure there are people who could look at the photos and see what was going on, but I'm not one of them.  Not yet.  I do know that doily charts can have a lot of weirdness that is not very noticeable, especially after the doily is finished and blocked, and that's even in areas where the fabric is not distorted.

By round 171 -- the section of hex mesh starts with 14 stitches.  (I don't care how it ends because that's not my current problem)

Round 169 (using the first chart, since it's where I need to be for round 171 to work) -- it ends with 14 stiches, check.  It starts with 18.

Round 167 -- It ends with 18 stitches.  It starts with 22.

Round 165, which is where I am now.  The first section ends with 22 stitches.  It starts with 24.

Round 163 ends with 28.  So I have to do something to get to 14 stitches by round 171, and preferably 22 stitches by the time I start round 167.  I essentially need to make one more repeat of hex mesh (4 stitches) go away in a visually unobtrusive way over the next few rounds.

So.  Round 163 starts and ends with a double decrease and 2 yarnovers.  If I drop one yarnover at each end (which I can do easily, since the slightly loose stitch in round 164 will disappear when being blocked), then I'm down to 26 stitches.  (This changes the edge stitches to a single yarnover and a double decrease.)

For round 165, we now have 26 stitches to start the round.  The edge stitches for the hex mesh in round 165 are charted as / \ o o / ... \ o o / \.  After dumping one of the yarnovers from round 163, it's easy to change the / \ to a double decrease.

However, if I merely change the last couple of stitches to a double decrease, I only get to 24 stitches by the end of the round.  I'd like to get all the way to 22 if possible since there isn't a lot of wiggle room in the next few rounds.

If I change the last few stitches of round 165 to a double decrease and 1 yarnover (as I'm doing for round 163), that should get me down to 22 for round 167.  And then we're good.

I will probably check this out with a mini-swatch to make sure the numbers work and nothing looks too obviously stupid.  I don't know if there was a better way to have done it starting in some earlier round, but I'm obviously working under the constraint of not wanting to take out and re-chart and re-do thousands of stitches.

F&F Shawl -- making progress!  I'm on the second of four skeins of yarn, starting at around row 66 or 67 or so.  This means the shawl will be roughly 130-ish rounds before binding off.  I still like how the variegation is interacting with the pattern.  Unless things change, I'm committed to the project, yay!

Sweater -- still in the planning stages, but I'm inching closer.  Current plan is Appledore-ish gansey with fuzzy gray handspun.  Simple seed or moss or betty martin stitch should show up OK even without really sharp stitch definition.  I last knit it at 4.5 st/in, but might do a swatch on smaller needles to see if I can easily get it tighter and if I can, if I like the fabric of the tighter gauge.  If I have less of this yarn thank I think I have, I can do 3/4 or shorter sleeves.

Rigid Heddle Loom Weaving

I've decided that I'll use this blog for weaving posts since weaving uses yarn in similar ways and similar quantities to how knitting uses it.  And also because weaving might be a good way to use bits and bobs of handspun that are too small or ugly or rough to use for the kinds of projects I usually knit.  If I end up doing a lot of weaving or acquire and start using a bigger loom, then I'll probably just start up a new blog devoted to weaving.

I have stopped circling the newly-acquired vintage rigid heddle loom and started working with it.  This will be my first-ever real-loom project.  I don't count tablet or inkle weaving since those, in my brain, are narrow wares rather than real weaving.  I also don't count the small amount of backstrap weaving I've done with either small rigid heddles or string heddles since those projects are closer to narrow wares than a piece of cloth.

When I picked up the latest rescue wheel, the person asked if I also wanted a similar-vintage rigid heddle loom, too.  I said "sure!" since, well, fiber-equipment rescue means that I say yes to just about any working piece of equipment that fits in my very strict budget (and my car).

The pic below is the loom as I received it.  It's a Northfield Tia Rigid Heddle Loom from the mid-1970s.  It has a 20-inch weaving width (about 22 inches overall) and an 8-dent heddle.  The sides are plastic.

There's also a rod that came with the loom, notched every 1/2".  I have no idea what this is since it didn't come with the original loom (as I can tell from looking at internet photos of etsy and ebay sales of the loom in its box).  So it's either from some other loom or weaving equipment entirely, or it was used for some random purpose that isn't obvious.  I'm tentatively planning on using it as a stick to hold a string heddle if I want to do any fancy weaving.

None of the original shuttles were still with the loom, but the person from whom I got it threw in a couple of extra stick shuttles that were lying around.  Good enough for now!

Dang, weaving has lots of jargon.  And dang, I know and understand a lot more of it than I did a few years ago.  I'm probably still moderately incorrect at times.

As you can see, there's a project already on the loom, a very weft-faced fabric that uses every slot and hole in the heddle.  Many of the warp threads are snapped.

I need to get a new photo of what things look like now.

The old project is off the loom.  Cut cut cut unroll untie discard etc.  The loom has been dusted and wiped down with a damp paper towel to get off old spiderwebs and bugs.

And I've warped for my first project.

Most of the stuff I've read says that an 8-dent reed/heddle is suitable for worsted weight yarn.  I found a skein of Sugar n Cream in my oddballs stash so that's what I'm using.  (I found another worsted-weight cotton to use for weft.)

I decided to start with half the width (slots 20-60-ish, or 80 ends) and about 2 yards-ish for warp length.  Good thing I didn't try for anything wider -- that's as far as the warp skein went!  There's only a few yards left, not even enough to have gone for 82 ends.

I did a direct warp, mostly because I've not done one before.

The warp is wound onto the back beam, with leftover one-sided scrap used between layers of warp.  (One-sided scrap is what we call 8.5" x 11" copy paper that is in the recycle bin.)  I had some help with this -- someone held the warp at a gentle tension while I wound it on.

Next up will be cutting the front of the warp and moving half the threads from the slots to the holes.  Sley away!

I'm sure the first project will suck in all the usual beginner ways.  Eh, I don't care.  We all start at white belt.  In other words, you can't get better without starting where you are.  As with my first sprang project, my first tablet-weaving, my first doily -- they might not be terribly complex nor expertly executed, but I'll still be thrilled.  And hopefully I'll keep practicing until I become competent.

If the first piece doesn't suck too badly, I might try to turn it into a bag or some other semi-useful item.  Otherwise, I'll throw it into the sampler/prototype box.

Hopefully I'll remember to take more pics as I finish the warping process and start weaving.  At some point, I'll write more about the rescue wheel, too.

Progress and no-progress reports on various projects

I'm blathering about several things in this post, so what the heck, let's use some bolded sub-headings so I can find them later.  (or so that the Imaginary Reader can skip anything too boring, assuming that they want to read any of this at all)

Doily Non-Progress Report

Lavori 07/30 is still sitting in time-out, waiting for me to look closely at the chart and count stitches and then re-chart the problem section for the next three pattern rounds.

Here's a pic of what it looked like after round 163:

I'm getting close to done with the current partial ball of thread.  I still haven't unraveled and re-skeined the little section of filet crochet that I cut off the partial ball earlier so I won't worry about that for now.  Next up is another partial ball of thread.  After that, I have a set of 3 full balls of thread left, each 350 yards.  I'm kind of hoping I won't need to use any of those, and that the remaining partial ball (from a ball that was originally 500 yards) might be enough to get to the end of the doily, even if I have to reclaim the little bit of filet crochet.  I'm probably fooling myself, though, and will probably end up cracking at least one of the full balls.  However, I'm not likely to need all three of them, whew, meaning that I did have enough of this stuff to do a 200+ round doily.  Fingers crossed and all that.

I have no idea how much thread I've used already since I've started with all the partial balls.  I'll weigh it afterwards and estimate the yardage from the weight.  Ravelry tells me that 250 yards weighs 18 grams, more or less.

Travel Knitting Project

My feather-and-fan shawl is going well.  I'm nearing the end of the first skein already.  Yikes!  This means it probably won't be much bigger than a shoulder shawl, though blocking might help a bit.  That's because using 1/4 of the yarn means the shawl is half the size it will be when done, and I'm gonna reach that point relatively soon.  Also, it's not going to be a good travel knitting project for long at this rate!

Here is a recent-ish photo:

There's a blurry image of a cat in the lower right corner of the pic -- a black long-haired cat with a few white whiskers.  She was zooming over to sit on the shawl when I took the photo.

Spinning (wheel evaluation skein is finished!)

I finally plied the evaluation skein for my new rescue wheel.  I used the Fricke and it all fit on one bobbin.

There's roughly 360 yards of 2-ply, roughly 3.5 oz.  The fiber was sold to me as a 4-oz bag, so either there's some humidity loss or my postal scale isn't accurate or they didn't tare the bag, or something.  They're a reputable vendor so I am assuming there's some innocuous reason.

As yarn goes, it's not great stuff.  The fiber consisted of little bits and pieces of various things rather than being one batt or one long strip of roving.  It wasn't much fun to spin and the 2-ply is kind of eh, too.

I can tell the difference between the early and late-spun singles, as the rescue wheel was getting smoother and more consistent.

Dunno what I'll do with this yarn.  Maybe when I learn to use the rescue rigid heddle loom, all my ugly yarn will get turned into fabric for bags or rugs or something.  Or I'll knit it into a toy or a bag or a cat bed, something where looks and feel aren't too important.

I'm glad the fiber is out of my stash.  It has been annoying me ever since I brought two bags of this home (in two different colorways/blends) and realized that it wasn't a single well-blended batt as I had assumed.  Maybe it was intended for felters rather than spinners.  Whatever.  I won't buy it again.

Now I get to decide what fiber and what wheel to use for the next spinning project, yay!

The new wheel could use a little bit more cleaning and playing around with, but it's already making very decent yarn.  I'm not sure if I'll use it or one of my other wheels for the next project.  Probably a different wheel -- I don't want my wheels to feel unloved, so I try to use most of them on a semi-regular basis.

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Appledore Gansey Thoughts and Planning

I'm getting more serious about starting a gansey, and in particular, an Appledore-ish sweater.  It won't be a true gansey, since it won't be form-fitting nor knitted at 7-8 stitches per inch from fine, smooth yarn.  I've been going back through the links and books and what-not I saved from last time to re-acquaint myself with what I had been thinking back then, as well as what I'm thinking about it all now.  It's fun to find some new resources, too.

Once I decide on a yarn and possibly a recipient (if I don't just make it for myself), I'll work out the necessary schematics and stitch numbers and cast on.

I'll definitely want to keep track of the Real Gauge, try on the sweater early and often, and be prepared to rip and re-do as necessary.  Usually I start with a sleeve, both because it's easier to work around small gauge differences between the swatch and the real thing, and because it's not too much of a time investment to rip and re-do a sleeve.  However, ganseys usually finish with the sleeves rather than starting with them, and I'm not planning on doing otherwise.  So I'll dive into the body and see how it goes.  I already unraveled the first iteration of this sweater, so what's one more unraveling?

I'll do k1p1 for the ribbing at all edges, probably on a smaller needle, and quite possibly (at least for the lower edge and sleeve cuffs) on a smaller number of stitches than the stockinette body/sleeves.

I'll keep one purl stitch for the side, which will of course continue down the underside of the sleeves.

I need to look at PGR and EZ and BBR, etc., for typical percentages for drop-shoulder armhole depth.  The gusset will start about 2" below the armhole split, and should increase 2 stitches every 4th round, to end up at roughly 2" wide by the time the split is reached.  If one reaches 2" wide before 2" high, then a few extra rounds without increases are called for.  There's a post on one of the Facebook groups about the Appledore gansey pattern that's in Prangs, Tacks, and Frocks by John Whitlock and Josephine Sims, and that seems to be what the sample pattern in the booklet calls for.  I'll probably mirror the sleeve gusset so that it too will be about 2" deep by the time it's decreased away.

I'm not sure yet if I'll do seed stitch, moss stitch, or Betty Martin for the shoulders.  I've seen those variations and more in the old photos and other people's patterns and projects.  I won't have as many rows to work with given my probable gauge, so keeping it simple is probably better.  The Prangs, Tacks, and Frocks booklet uses seed stitch, I believe, given the photo of the finished sweater in the Facebook post I saw.  The sweater (and pattern) in Rae Compton's book (Traditional Guernsey and Jersey Knitting) calls for moss stitch and also might have deeper bands of reverse stockinette.  I believe that Compton's pattern calls for reverse stockinette -- moss - rev st - a row or two of stockinette, and then mirrored on the other side.  The 3-needle-BO seems to be where the shoulder strap abuts the back.  In the PTF booklet, I can't tell for sure yet, but it looks like both front and backs have a strap (half as wide as Compton's) and they do the 3NBO where the straps join?

It's nothing to worry about yet.  And seeing different versions makes me more confident in choosing to do whatever works best for my own purposes.

Hmm, I wonder if I can still acquire a copy of Prangs, Tacks, and Frocks?

Yarn.  That's often the most dither-y part of the project, sigh.  Fuzzy gray handspun that probably knits up at 4.5 st/in?  Valley Yarns, where the choices are a fairly smooth worsted weight or a very smooth sock weight (that I would knit 2-stranded at 5 st/in because I don't yet want to knit an adult-size sweater at 7 st/in)?  Something else, which requires me to go stash-diving to see what I have?  My handspun tends to be fuzzy, which might or might not matter given the simplicity of this gansey.  I'll have to see what else there is in the commercial-yarn stash that might work if the above options aren't sufficient.

And so on.

It's possible I'll be overcome with decision analysis paralysis or get distracted by something else completely, but this is still a fun exercise.

I do want to do a Staithes-style seeds-and-bars aka Harry Freeman gansey someday.  But right now I want the soothing vast expanses of stockinette knitting that the Appledore gansey showcases.

And that's enough verbiage for this post.

Lavori 07/30 progress and the next set of chart errors

I'm still slowly making progress on Lavori 07/30.  I'm definitely in the section where there are already 12 repeats per round, meaning that the chart (at 6 pattern repeats per round) repeats the same sequence of stitches.  This makes it easier to keep track of things and also to spot errors.  There are over 800 stitches per round now.  The flower is long gone; it's just the hex mesh and leaf motifs now.

Here's another chart error.  I could have put it in my previous post but was hoping to put it in the post where I finally did jump to the next chart (at round 171).

Round 159:  After the first set of leaves (and the skp, k3, k2t that finishes it off), the stitches at the beginning of the stretch of hex mesh are charted as yo, skp, k2t.  This should be symmetric with all the others, and the skp should be a double-decrease (sk2p, left-leaning to preserve symmetry).

Now I am on round 165 and have discovered a true chart error.  All of the previous ones have been fairly obvious typos, but this one is a little more complex.

The first set of hex mesh motifs shows 5 repeats of the motif, while the second shows 6 repeats.  The first set does not match the stitch counts for round 163.  The second set does.  However, the first set, going upwards through round 169, does match the stitch count needed for round 171.  The second set, therefore, does not.

Sigh.

There are decreases at each end of the hex mesh motifs.  I believe that if I change them from single to double decreases, that the stitch counts will work out.  The first set on the chart will work as charted from then on.  The second set will match the first set.

I need to do some charting and very careful stitch counting before I continue.  If necessary, I can also involve the edge double-yarnovers that are next to the double decreases in round 163 and change them to single yarnovers by dropping the second yarnover.  I'll see what seems to work best to make sure I reach round 171 with the correct number and arrangement of hex-mesh motifs.

I can also see that there is something weird at the end of round 167/169.  There's a double decrease at the end of round 167 that just sort of disappears in round 169.  There are no move-the-marker symbols on the chart at that point but I suspect that the last stitch of round 167/168 does move to the beginning of round 169.  Then, of course, the problem will be moving to round 167 instead of round 169 depending on what I do at the end of round 165 (since I'm probably changing the skp at the end of round 165 to a double decrease).

On the bright side, the leaf motif sections appear to be charted correctly, no missing yarnovers or anything.

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I did start a new travel project!  It is indeed the F&F half-square triangle shawl I mentioned in the last post.  Instead of handspun, I'm using a batch of commercial yarn from the stash.  It's a smooth variegated light-worsted-weight yarn.  I have 4 balls of it, between 450 and 500 yards.  I like it so far.  I had thought to use this yarn in a Wingspan shawl, but that was a few years ago.  I'll be happy to have it out of my stash as long as the yarn and pattern are a good combo, which so far they seem to be.

I'm dithering a bit about sweaters again.  This time it's the simple gansey projects I had done some research on a few years ago -- the Appledore gansey and/or Harry Freeman's "seeds and bars" gansey.  The Appledore gansey/jersey is a classic gansey in its construction, but the only decoration is on the shoulder straps.  Harry Freeman's gansey has several horizontal bands of simple moss or seed stitch patterning, separated by bands of garter or reverse stockinette.  The Harry Freeman gansey is a very popular and widespread style with a lot of simple variations, and even Mr. Freeman himself had several slightly different versions in his sweater wardrobe.

There is a pattern given for an Appledore gansey in Rae Compton's book on traditional gansey/jersey knitting.  I had adapted it for my size and for a big batch of handspun I wanted to use, and had gotten as far as the armholes when I decided I didn't like how it was turning out.  So maybe I'll try again, not following any specific pattern but just kind of winging it.  I have several books that discuss ganseys in addition to general sweater construction plus the resources of the internet.  I also have several sweater-sized yarn batches, both handspun and commercial, in various yarn weights.

Although I like the seeds and bars patterns, I'm not sure what yarn I'd want to use.  Plus I'm not sure it would be flattering on me.

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I still haven't plied the yarn spun on the new rescue wheel.  Maybe this afternoon.  Then it might be time to clean and warp the rescued rigid heddle loom.  I think I've already written about that a bit.  I'm still trying to decide if general weaving posts will go on this blog or on another fiber blog.

No photos for this post!  Maybe I'll add something later, but chances are that it'll wait to the next post.

The Ides of August (Lavori 7/30 doily progress report)

If not the ides of August, it's close enough.

Progress on my Lavori 7/30 doily has been slow.  The stitch count is increasing again, and, well, I often slow down at around this point in a long project.  But there is progress, yay!  As far as I can tell, the doily now has 12 pattern repeats per round.  The chart still shows 6 pattern repeats per round, but that just means that there are 2 repeats charted on each line of the chart.  I'm not too far off from where the pattern transitions to the outer fan motifs and the chart really does switch to 12 repeats per round.

I did finish my Touchstone shawl, my travel project for the last few months.  It's a boomerang shawl for sure -- longer than I am tall, but not terribly deep (less than 2 feet if I block aggressively).  It's more of a scarf than a shawl.  I haven't blocked it yet.

The colors are pretty and they harmonize very well with the pattern.  I used every last inch of yarn in the skein.  I ran out most of the way through the cast-off row, oops, but luckily the crochet-cheat-trick kludge isn't too obvious in spite of the slight tension differences.  Also, I wasn't able to finish the entire pattern as written.  The final set of eyelets calls for five eyelet bands.  I did three.  It's not a problem -- it looks fine the way it is.

But this means I have no travel project!!!  ACK!!!  Plus I'll need one for tomorrow!  As a default, I can make acrylic ribbed hats for charity.

I'm thinking of doing another one of Sarah Bradberry's Feather and Fan Comfort Shawls, since it's very hap-shawl-like (it's a half-square triangle shawl with f&f).  I have a mish-mash of hand-dyed handspun that I'd like to find a use for.  They're all medium gray Romney dyed in various shades (deliberately uneven dyeing to have somewhat variegated roving).  A few are barberpoled, while the others are self-plied.  Most are 1.5-3 ounces, 100-200 yards each, roughly 1000-1200 yards total.  F&F is a pretty reasonable pattern choice for stripes and long variegations.

Or, I could cast on a zillion stitches and do a rectangular piece of F&F, one skein after another, and then end up with a rectangular lap blanket or shawl.

Or I could do a center-out shawl/blanket, either circular/polygonal or square.  I'd have to give a little consideration to the cast-off so that things didn't roll, but I've done that before by using a couple of rounds of crochet-cast-off, or by doing a bit of garter or seed stitch on the final rounds.  One problem with this is that I'd really be horsing stitches around the needle by the end.  Even the half-square triangle tends to get unwieldy by the time it's close to done.

Or I could do something else entirely.  I have two or three other batches of yarn I'd like to use up if I can find a reasonable pattern to complement them.  Maybe one of them would be better for the F&F half-square triangle pattern.  Hmmm.

Plus I'm going to be learning how to weave on a rigid heddle loom soon, and that too can use a lot of my handspun to good effect even though it's not exactly the same thing as a travel knitting project.

Dithering is stressful.

I'm also eyeing a shawl I started long ago.  It's been sitting for a while.  Do I continue it?  Do I unravel it?  It's not a difficult pattern but it's not quite calm enough for a travel project.  If I do unravel it, what would I do with the yarn?  And should I try the pattern again but with a different yarn?  The yarn I'm using does suit the pattern, but there's 1000 yards of it, and maybe I'd rather have something smaller.

At least the spinning does not require any decisions currently.  I'm doing a 4-oz batch of something not-great as a first project for the most recently rescued wheel.  It's going well.  Dunno what I'll spin after that, but I'll worry about that when this batch is done.  I have to figure out tomorrow's knitting first.

Musings about spinning wheels -- rehabbing older wheels (CPW)

In my first post in this series, I wrote how I'd spun on a wheel borrowed from a friend, but it had been sold when I inquired about purchasing it.

So...  back then, I thought it was a 1970s-ish era Ashford Traditional.  It had tilt tension and a split table, so that seemed like a reasonable conclusion.  It thus occurred to me that perhaps I should go find a nice vintage Ashford Traddy on the used market and buy my own!

And thus started a new habit.  I didn't see any Ashfords for sale when I looked.  But I did see other wheels!  Oooh....

The first wheel I went to see confused me.  Beautiful, yes.  But where was the tension control?  Why did the flyer/bobbin arrangement have nowhere for the yarn to go through the orifice?

I'm glad I already knew how to spin and could figure out these kinds of details.  Because yes, this was the wheel for which the term SWSO was invented.  This Spinning Wheel Shaped Object was designed as decor, not as a spinning wheel.  It was a lovely Made in Canada Roxton spinning wheel.

I smiled politely and walked away, though I earnestly informed them that this wheel was ornamental only and could not possibly spin.  I have no idea if they knew that, though in retrospect I don't think they cared either way.

I don't remember if there was another non-functional wheel during that first search.  Or maybe there was a bait-and-switch where they said one price but then either increased the price or suggested I offer a higher bid.  (That's happened a few times.)  But then I saw an ad for a rather battered CPW.  I'd never seen one in person even though I knew of their existence.  So down I toddled.  And it followed me home.

So much to learn!  First, a solid cleaning to remove the dust of ages.  And then a few tweaks and what-not.

The whorl was stuck on the flyer, not uncommon in an older wheel.  The screw was left-handed but I knew enough to be aware of the possibility so I didn't break anything.  The bobbin and whorl and flywheel had a few chips here and there, but nothing too awful.

The footman was missing.  No big deal -- A long piece of wire worked perfectly well.  Any drivebands were long gone, but a nice piece of crochet cotton took care of that.

The hub had a crack.  But it seemed very stable so I left it alone.  And the tension device was deeply kludged -- it had been semi-modernized previously.  So although it wasn't original, it did work.  I could adjust the tension and that tension would hold.  I could have purchased a replacement if and when I was ready to do so but I ended up not doing that.

The first time I sat down to spin, the whorl immediately tightened itself all the way until it mashed against the bobbin.  I guess the screw (either the whorl or the flyer shaft) was slightly stripped.  Wrapping a piece of plumber's teflon tape around the area on the flyer shaft took care of that problem.

Then she spun!!!

I was thrilled.  Wow, this old spinning wheel, neglected for decades, was now a working wheel, because of my actions!

CPWs are delightful wheels.  They're so industrial-looking, with the large flywheel and the beautiful metal treadle.  They look and feel very steampunk.

People say they are really fast wheels.  I'm not so sure about that.  A whorl-to-flywheel ratio is what matters, I believe, no matter how big or small the flywheel is.  But the large wheel whooshing around is very impressive, for sure.  And it was a nicely efficient spinner.

I enjoyed using the wheel.  When I did a long-distance move several years later, I sold it locally since I thought it should stay in the area.  The person who bought it finished fixing it up and then re-sold it.  I am happy that someone could put in the time and money and know-how to bring out the wheel's full former glory.  I hope its current owner loves it as much as I did.  Maybe someday I'll get another.

For those who care, CPW stands for Canadian Production Wheel.  It refers to a style of spinning wheel that was made in the late 19th through mid 20th century by a group of wheel makers who were based in Quebec.  The wheels were sold locally and also by the Dupuis Freres department store (under the brand name of Duprex).  They mostly feature large flywheels, metal treadles (and footmen), tilt tensioning, and a double-drive setup.  People who love and collect them have identified distinguishing characteristics of most of the major manufacturers, though there was a certain amount of mix-and-match and also a bit of individuality between wheels even by the same family or person rather than everything being cookie-cutter alike.  Mine was probably a Bordua, probably from one of the later/younger family members of the Bordua CPW Dynasty.

Here's some yarn I spun on my CPW.  It's llama that I had dyed with kermes.

I don't seem to have a lot of other clear photos of yarn I've spun on this wheel, darn it.  But there was more, really and truly!

After that experience, I was hooked.  Getting an inexpensive and possibly neglected old wheel, and restoring it to spinning functionality - it was addictive.  And I still wanted that vintage Ashford Traditional.  Even after I figured out that the initial loaner wheel was something else entirely.

So I kept looking.  And when the stars aligned, kept doing wheel rescue.

This is the second in what seems to be turning into a series of spinning wheel posts.

Musings about spinning wheels -- my first wheel (Fricke)

I've written a bit about spinning on this blog.  It's usually oblique -- a view of some yarn plus or minus discussion of a knitting project, with a brief mention that it's handspun.  There's a post about CD spindles (still my favorite type of production drop spindle) but only a little bit about wheels.  Hmmm.

I acquired my first wheel about 5 years after I started spinning.   I was exclusively a spindle-spinner before that.  A friend loaned me one of her wheels for a few months and after I returned it, I decided to get my own.  I've written about that loaner wheel -- I spun a few pounds of Romney on it that winter and eventually knit a sweater from the yarn.  Many years later I asked if I could buy the wheel from my friend, but alas, it had already been sold to someone else.  I don't know what it was.  I saw it once, maybe in the New Zealand spinning wheel site, but I can't remember what it was.  It was similar to an Ashford but it wasn't an Ashford.

The first wheel I bought was a Fricke S-160.  It's one of the very few wheels I purchased as a new wheel (as opposed to a used wheel).  I absolutely hated the delta orifice but luckily was able to get a more traditional flyer where the yarn goes through an orifice.  I've spun so much on it that the edge of the orifice hole is shiny and thin where the yarn rubs against it.

I still have and use that wheel, many many miles of spun yarn later.  It's my main travel wheel when I do demos or hang out with spinners and knitters.  It's not really designed to be a good travel wheel since it doesn't fold up and it's not particularly streamlined nor lightweight.  However, it is sturdy and utilitarian and doesn't have a lot of little things that can get scratched or broken or knocked out of alignment.  It's also one of my main plying wheels since the bobbins are a pretty decent size.

Some of the original plastic bits have needed replacing, namely the driveband (a stretchy band) and the footman connectors (plastic tubing of some sort).  I was able to get a new driveband from the Frickes.  When it was time to replace the footman connectors, I found out that the Frickes had retired!  Oh, sad day...  But it turned out that Ashford makes a 6mm cord that works well as a substitute, yay!

That's the downside of modern materials, and in particular, polymers.  They get brittle with age.  Maybe someday I'll have to replace these with a string for the driveband and leather for the footman connectors.  But hopefully I'll be able to find proper polymer replacement parts for a good long time.

The Fricke wheel has a nice range of ratios.  I almost always use the faster ones.  The bobbins are Majacraft plastic bobbins that hold roughly 4 oz.  The wheel is a simple upright style, single treadle, scotch tension.  The treadle is large enough to treadle with either foot or both feet.  It has a heel-toe action that means I need to find the sweet spot.

I've seen some weird Franken-wheels over the years that use bits from the Fricke wheel as one of the component wheels.  I have no idea why people do that -- did something on the Fricke break so they re-used its pieces?  Did they not like the Fricke for some reason?  I have no idea how well the Franken-wheels spun.  I hope for the sake of their owners that they spun reasonably well.

I know the Frickes came out with a double-treadle version as well as folding versions.  But I have the simple, bottom-line, old-school plain wheel.

Hmm, I don't know if I have a picture of my Fricke.  Maybe I'll add a pic to this post later.  There are plenty online if anyone cares.  But I can share a few photos of yarn I've spun.

The above pic is some 2-ply alpaca that I spun at a demo.

Some BFL handpaint, left as singles yarn.  I dyed it myself (or a family member dyed it) rather than buying the roving already dyed.

Some white 2-ply merino/dorset that was plied on the Fricke.

A cowl that I knit with Fricke-spun handspun yarn.  I later ended up unraveling it because the proportions ended up not quite right for my needs.  I'm glad I took a photo, though, since the fabric is very cute and I like how the pattern stitch interacts with the yarn.

And here's the yarn that made the cowl.  I'm pretty sure I dyed the roving.  I'm not 100% sure what the fiber was -- my original notes said BFL but when I spun it up it behaved more like some Romney roving I had at the time.

And so on.

This post started as some general musings on wheels.  But it ended up being about just one wheel, really, with only a little bit about the loaner wheel that preceded it.  I guess I've started a new series...  I have many musings to go.

Not that it's relevant, but I'm still making progress on my doily and I'm nearly done with my travel shawl/scarf.  I don't think there's enough yarn to finish the last sets of eyelets as the pattern calls for, but it'll be fine either way.

Another July progress post on Lavori 07/30 (with the latest errata, of course)

The pic I have looks like a proper wad of thread.

But you can see bits of leaves and the crossed stitches of the flower.

Two more chart errors:

Round 141:  There is a missing yarnover at the very beginning of the pattern repeat.

Round 153:  Ditto -- a missing yarnover at the very beginning of the pattern repeat.

Both of these are in a section of the pattern where every 4th round begins and ends with a yarnover.  It's pretty obvious that the yarnovers are missing in the above rounds.  I'm not at round 153 yet but listed the chart error already because it's so obvious.

I've finished another partial ball of thread (early in round 146) and am on to the next!  It was attached to a project already when I bought the thread, a pretty little piece of filet crochet.  I cut it off since it would have been a pain to unravel and re-block the thread while it was still attached to the unused thread wound on the cardboard tube.  Maybe I'll eventually unravel and re-block and use the thread, and maybe I'll leave the filet crochet project alone in honor of the person who crocheted it, wherever he/she may be these days.  I'm sorry their project never got finished and never got used.  I certainly won't be the one to do it.  Not only do I have no idea what the finished project was intended to be (and how many more motifs it might have contained), but I don't particularly enjoy doing filet crochet.

I am at around the midpoint of this doily, maybe a little bit beyond, with close to 3/4 of the rounds being done.  Soon I will move to the 60" long needle, which is the longest I currently own.

The rest of the doily doesn't have anything too wild and crazy, not like the earlier parts.  It'll be the leaf motifs, lots of hex mesh, and then the outer triple-fans with 12 pattern repeats per round.  Hopefully I'll be able to stay focused, especially when the stitch counts really start climbing.

My travel knitting project is close to done.  I'm starting the final block of yarnovers.  I don't know if I'll get through the remainder of the pattern as written or if I will run out of yarn and end the shawl a little bit earlier.  Either way, it'll be OK.  And either way, I really do need to figure out the next travel knitting project!

The first July progress report on Lavori 07/30

Another few weeks, another few rounds, another few chart errors.

Really, though, it's coming along; maybe not the fastest progress but still relatively steady.

I'm done with the flowers.  No more crossed stitches.  That feels kind of weird after so many hundreds of them in this pattern so far.  But nope, they're done.  Now it's time for the final set of leaves, which will soon match the other leaves that started a while back, as the pattern transitions from 6 to 12 pattern repeats per round.  After that, the outer fans will start and the number of stitches will climb quickly, but that's not for a while yet.

I'm probably close to half-done with the pattern, give or take a bit.  Wow.  I'm also just about done with the current partial ball of thread.  I have a few more partial balls left before I'd need to start one of the full balls of this stuff.  (I have three full balls or 350 yards each in addition to all the partial balls.)

A few more chart errors:

Round 127:  A missing yarnover between the left side of the flower and the hex mesh section.  It should be (yo, sk2p) after all of the crossed stitches.

Round 135:  2 errors in this row!  There's an extra yarnover to the left of the crossed-stitch section (the right side of the crossed-stitch section has the correct single yarnover), and also an extra yarnover in the center section of the leaves (there should be no double yarnovers in the leaf motif area, just single yarnovers).

So far, all of the chart errors have been more like typos than errors.  They're all fairly minor and all fairly obvious.  I hope that continues, should there be more errors up ahead.  I assume there will be more of these chart typos, because why wouldn't there be?

As part of my final posts on this doily, after it's completed, I'll have a list of all the chart errors in this pattern.  That might be in 2025, or maybe not until 2026 or beyond.  We'll see!  So far, I'm pleased with my knitting stamina.  But I often get the doldrums between half and two-thirds to three-quarters done.  I'm trying not to push myself too hard and also mixing this in with a lot of other fun things.

No photos for this post!

Probably the final June 2025 progress report on Lavori 07/30

I'm still making progress on Lavori 07/30.  I didn't get a chance to work on it every day, but progress is progress.  There are over 100 stitches per pattern repeat now, over 600 per round.

I'm in the final section of the flower motif, with lots of crossed stitches to define the upper floofy bits (petals?  pistil/stamens?  generalized floral impressions?).  I've also started the third set of leaf motifs, which is a different style of leaf motif than the inner leaf motifs.

For the moment, there aren't any pattern repeats that begin and end with a yarnover, since the growing leaves are at the end of the pattern repeats.  In the early rounds where the leaves started and ended with yarnovers, the hex mesh used a k2 where a yarnover was adjacent to the leaves to keep it texturally separate.

Another few chart errors:

Round 113:  Another fairly obvious missing yarnover, just to the right of the flower motif section.

Round 113 also has a non-symmetric bit in the flower section -- all the knits turn into (yarnover, knit 1), which doubles the stitches for the flower.  That section does not end with an extra yarnover, which makes it slightly asymmetric.  This is correct as charted.

Round 121:  Yet another fairly obvious missing yarnover, in the middle of the hex mesh section after the flower.

Round 123:  Another missing yarnover directly above the missing yarnover symbol in round 121.

I see a few upcoming chart errors (more missing yarnovers) but I'll wait until I get there to confirm.

And here is a pic of my Touchstone shawl/scarf.  I'm over half done now, probably closer to 3/4 done.  I've finished the fourth set of eyelet bands and am close to the end of the next garter stitch band.  Then it's one more set of eyelet bands, a few more rows of garter stitch, and then it's done.  I'll adjust as necessary based on the amount of yarn I have left as I get close.

I need to start thinking about the next travel project, since this one won't last much longer.

I have no similar worries about the doily -- I've finished maybe 2/3 of the rounds, so I'm about 1/3 done with the doily.  I have lots and lots of knitting left to do.  Though if I want to sneak in a few smaller doilies in the meantime, I might do so.  Lavori 07/30 is on my 47" long circular needle now, so all the shorter ones are available for use.

Yet another June 2025 Lavori 07/30 progress report

Another week, another few rounds, another chart error.

Round 105:  there's a missing yarnover at the beginning of the pattern repeat.  I noticed this as an anomaly a while ago, and yup, it is indeed missing.

I'm done with the columns of twisted stitches, yay!  I had been twisting them on intermediate rounds, so it's kind of nice to go back to not needing to think or count on the non-pattern rounds.  Soon I will start the next set of leaf motifs, which will be part of this pattern all the way to the end.  Plus I'll soon increase a bunch more stitches and then start on a new set of crossed-stitch motifs as the flower fully poofs out.

The large number of stitches is somewhat tedious.  But there's enough variety that I'm still enjoying myself quite a lot.

My travel shawl is coming along nicely.  I've finished the section with four sets of eyelet rounds.  Now I do another section of garter, then a section with five sets of eyelets, then a few more rounds of garter stitch and then cast off.  It's more than it sounds like since the rows have an ever-increasing number of stitches.  But it feels like I'm getting a lot closer to the end than the beginning.  The ball of yarn is quite noticeably smaller.  All of this is subject to how much yarn I have, of course!  If I run out sooner than expected, I'll cast off sooner, too.

It also means I need to give more thought to the next travel project(s).  And, as I keep writing, I don't have enough projects on my needles and I really should cast on a few more -- a hat, a sweater, mitts or socks, etc., plus start planning the next semi-mindless shawl.

No pics today!

Lavori 07/30 progress report -- triple digits and another chart error

Yay!  I'm halfway through the rounds, and thus roughly 25% done with the knitting, give or take a bit.

There's another chart error on round 97 -- there is an asymmetry on the outside of the 5-X-5 sequences.  The right side has a yarnover while the left side has a double yarnover.  The single yarnover is correct for both spots.

I've finished the first part of the flower base, where there are a couple of rounds of garter stitch.  I've done the last crossed stitches of the lower leaves (well, second set of leaves; the first set is long finished).  The leaves have another few rounds before they finish merging into the background mesh.  There are still a LOT of stitches for barely being in the 100s, but so far it's reasonably pleasant knitting.

Things to look forward to -- more development of the flower, yay!  And I can see where the next set of leaves gets started.  Those will be around until the end of the doily, I believe.

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I can't remember if I've shared a pic of this doily before.

It's Burda 554/15.  It's really a square pattern, but I decided to experiment and see what happened if I did 5 pattern repeats instead of 4.  It was not fully successful -- I wasn't able to block it flat.  I still like how it looks.

This is what it's supposed to look like if one does 4 pattern repeats per round.

This was done early in my doily-knitting career, and it taught me some useful things about stitch counts and increase/decrease locations and the effect of relatively simple changes on the appearance of the doily.  I still am interested in those topics!

This might have been one I did simply because (a) it was small, and (b) I could read the chart without having to disassemble the chart pages from the magazine's staples.  That was definitely how I chose my first doilies from Burda 554!

First Lavori 07/30 progress report of June 2025

Just what it says...

The last leaves are starting to close and I've started on the flower, yay!

There's a chart error in round 93 -- a missing "1" in the middle of the pattern repeat, in the flower stem.  There's a small segment that should be O-1-O-1-O, and that second 1 is missing.  It's obvious when you get there.

It looks like a proper crumpled wad of thread.  I've done almost half the rounds which means I might be around 20-25% finished.  Except that it doesn't, since the stitch counts do all kinds of weird things rather than being a predictable and steady increase rate.  Whatever the true percentage of total knitting I've already done, it is clear that there is much (much, much) more to go.

I'm in no rush, luckily.

Onwards!

Memorial Day Weekend doily progress report

Plugging away on Lavor 07/30...  The leaves that started back around round 43 are finishing up.  I'm done with the crossed-stitches for the center ribs and the leaf tips are integrating into the next set of motifs.  The center leaf is turning into the flower stem in preparation for the flower, yay!, while the side two leaves will be merging into the hex mesh background, gone for good.

The new leaves that started growing at around 67 have finished with their V-1-V increasing at the centerline.  I was getting very tired of the mirrored M1 increases, so I'm happy to be done with that.  I don't think there are any more for the rest of the pattern.  There are other M1 increases, but they're not mirrored pairs.  Ditto for the crossed stitches -- I'm done with them on the three leaves, but there will be plenty more crossed stitches to come.

I finished the second partial ball of thread at the end of round 78 and am on the next partial ball.  It's a fairly big partial ball since the one I had intended to use was still attached to some crocheting done by the former owner of the thread.  I'll cut it off and/or reclaim the thread, haven't decided yet, but I didn't want to think about it so I grabbed the next yarn ball.  Any dyelot-related color changes are still subtle enough that I don't notice them, whew, and hopefully that continues.

The number of stitches per round is still climbing, oof.

I'm still enjoying myself.  It's a lot of work, but it's interesting knitting.

My travel shawl keeps getting worked on.  There are five sets of eyelet bands in the shawl, and I'm on the fourth one.  The rows keep getting ever longer so there's still plenty of knitting to go.  The yarn is still pretty and it still seems like a good pattern for this variegated long-repeat yarn.

That's about it on the current knit/spin/dye front!  Maybe I'll have some progress pics in the next post.  Or even a new project or two.

Back to the Main Quest Doily

Yay, I've resumed work on Lavori 07/30.  I'm back in the land of yarnovers as hex mesh starts separating the various leaves.  Pattern rounds that begin and end with yarnovers have also begun, which are so very characteristically Niebling-esque.  The number of stitches per round is increasing steadily.

After knitting with #40 thread for the Side Quest doily, the #30 seems like rope.  I'm close to the end of this partial ball of #30 and will soon switch to the next.  Fingers crossed, as always, that any differences in the shade of white are unnoticeable.

Another chart error -- the chart numbering jumps from 191 to 201 for no obvious reason.  So, instead of this doily being 210 rounds, it's actually 202 rounds.  Maybe there's something else going on, but if so, I'll figure it out when I get there.  There's nothing obvious going on in the photo of the doily or the instructions, and everything in the chart seems to line up properly.  Given that there are well over a thousand stitches per round by the outer parts of the doily, this means roughly 10,000 stitches I won't have to knit, which is fine by me.

Also, watch out when I get to round 105 -- I suspect there's a missing yarnover at the beginning of the pattern repeat.

That's it for today!

Side Quest doily: FdA 822

Lavori 07/30 took a quick break while I did another doily.

This is the doily from FdA 822.  I have no idea if there was a name attached, though FdA names tend to be more descriptions or random adjectives than names, really.

A friend and I did this one together, each choosing to interpret the chart symbols slightly differently.  That person has finished, and the doily is absolutely gorgeous.  I don't know if a pic has been posted yet, but we shared our photos with each other and that's how I know how nice it is.  Mine is above.  I'm reasonably pleased with it, too.

The little poof-like motifs in the middle section remind me a bit of Apache Plume seed heads.

I don't think I would have chosen to do this doily without being inspired by my fellow doily knitter.  About half of it is pattern-on-every-round.  And the outer rounds increase to a silly number of stitches.  But I do like how it turned out, so no regrets.

It turns out the every-round sections are brioche -- yarnover, slip 1, knit 2 together, offset on each round so the k2tog gets slipped and the yo-slip1 gets k2tog-ed.  That's the innermost motif and the middle motif.

The areas that aren't brioche are mostly hex mesh surrounding the other motifs as they grow and shrink.

The outer motifs are fans, with each fan consisting of three V-shaped sections separated from the other Vs of the fan by double yarnovers.  (In other words, each fan is O-V-O-O-V-O-O-V-O.)

So....

There are rounds that begin and end with yarnovers.  Some of these are typical Herbert Niebling hex mesh charting quirks.  I do the usual double-yo at the beginning of the round, with the first yarnover moving to the end of the round on the intermediate round.  (Is this a Herbert Niebling pattern?  This chart quirk is one piece of evidence pointing to him as the designer, as are the outer fan sections which are separated by double yarnovers.)

Some of them, though, are brioche yarnovers that just happen to be next to each other at the beginning and end of the round.  For those, keep them separate.  On the next round, each of the yarnovers will have something different happen, so they don't end up doing anything unfortunate to the overall design.

Also, in the every-round part, the chart will put a number (meant to be a number of knit stitches) above double yarnovers from the previous round.  For those, one does the usual thing of putting a knit and a purl into the double yarnover rather than two knits.

I changed some decrease directions (sk2p to k3t).  And I slipped stitches as if to purl.

I didn't block the doily very carefully, but it looks good anyway.  There are a few mistakes, especially in the brioche section, that I wasn't fully able to fix, but they're hard to see unless one is looking for them.

This pattern has 78 rounds, 16 pattern repeats per round.  I don't think there are any chart errors, but the knitter is expected to know how to handle the kinds of chart quirks I mentioned above.

Now back to Lavori 07/30!  At least until the next side quest.

It's also time to start thinking about the next travel project since I've been getting in some good knitting time on my travel shawl.  It's pretty, and will be more of a scarf than a shawl, as is typical for an asymmetric shallow triangle.

A Monmouth Cap

I have reached a pretty decent stopping point for the felting of a Monmouth cap I knit a few months ago.

I used Colleen Humphrey's pattern on Ravelry, which she says was done stitch-by-stitch from the extant Monmouth cap that is (or was) in the Nelson on Museum & Local History Centre (now known as the Monmouth Museum) in the UK.  Here's a link to the pattern (it's a free pdf download): https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/monmouth-cap-the-details-matter

Here is what the hat looked like fresh off the needles.

      

I used some Cascade 220 remnants, probably a bit more than one 100-gram skein.  It is knit 2-stranded, in the round, on whatever random big needle one has lying around.  Then it is felted down to size.  I used the washer/dryer rather than felting by hand, because I am lazy.

The first few rounds of felting were a bit unsatisfactory -- the felting was uneven, with some areas felting well and others almost completely unfelted.  But today I ran it through one more load of laundry, washer and dryer, and it felted sufficiently well.  I'll let it be and think about whether it would benefit from anything else.

I'd like to have a knitted hat that is relatively windproof as well as warm, and also somewhat water-resistant.  We'll see if this one works.

Warm, water-resistant, and wind-proof are my goals for things like hats.  I've knit a few that come pretty close.  We'll see if this one joins that rare club.  These days, I rarely take 6am walks when it's 0F and blizzarding.  So the warmth requirements aren't quite so hardcore.  Even so, wind is probably the biggest enemy of warmth.  I'm hoping this felted hat will be up to the task.

The hat fits slightly loosely around my temple (though it feels a bit snug going on, probably because there's not much elasticity left in the cast-on).  It does have a bit of a slouchy top, the air space that the hat is supposed to have.  Most sources claim that the hat is supposed to be worn above the ears.  I like to pull them down over my ears so that my ears stay warm.

It was fun to knit.  I've already knit one as a gift.  The previous one felted without any weirdnesses, though I didn't try to felt it down quite as much.  This one is for me.  I might well keep knitting them, just because.

The Monmouth Cap is a style of knitted hat that was popular in the UK between the 15th and 18th century, and is similar to a lot of European hats of that time period.

Someday I'll write about other warm hats I've knit in addition to the everyday hats that don't need to be quite as warm.  I have to go back through what I posted way back when to see if I already talked about them.

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I'm almost done with a <80-round doily that is a mini-KAL with someone else.  The pattern has some things that the other person found puzzling.  We got that figured out.  Then the other person decided that the photo didn't match the chart, and came up with a variant that looks a lot more like the photo.  Given the vagaries of charting, both variants are perfectly reasonable interpretations of the chart symbols.

The other person is done.  I will wait until pics have been posted before I write much more.  I am the follower rather than the leader of this KAL and it only seems right to let the other person post about the project before I do.

Is that sufficiently cryptic?

Anyway, I am looking forward to being done with this little doily so I can return to Lavori 7/30.

End of April 2025 progress report (Lavori 07/30 and the travel shawl)

Here's a recent progress pic of Lavori 07/30.  The early section of hex mesh is completely done and I'm in the stretch with no yarnovers.  I'm also in a short stretch within that where the stitch number will stay constant for a few pattern rounds.  The leaf ribs that are indicated by the V1V stitch sequence are turning into simple crossed stitches.  This section of doily is nothing but leaves!

I ran into the first chart error, in round 55.  There's a missing V symbol early in the pattern repeat.  It's very obvious when you get there.

The first partial ball of this white Clark's Big Ball #30 ran out in the 20s, not too long after I transitioned from dpns to a circular needle.  It was only a tiny amount and I'm glad it went as far as it did.  The next ball is close to done.  Will it make it to round 70?  I guess I'll find out.  I have at least two more partial balls before breaking into the first full ball (or presumably full, since these are all thrift store finds and there's no guarantee).  My guess is that I'll have knit about 200 to 250 ish yards of thread by the time this ball runs out.

So far it's been fun.  I'm on the 32" needle, so I suppose I can justify sneaking in a small doily every now and then while this is in progress, and even more so after I move to the 47" needle.

Here's a quick view of my travel project.  It's the Touchstone shawl from Ravelry, designed by Laura Aylor, worked in one of the Zauberball sock yarn gradients.  I've done the third set of eyelet blocks thanks to a bit of good travel knitting time this past weekend.  I have no idea if I'll have enough yarn to get all the way to the 5-block set as the pattern calls for, if I'll have lots of yarn left after that, or what.  I guess I'll find out!  The gauge is a little loose but it's still pretty reasonable.

I keep looking at my yarn stash and thinking about thicker yarns and non-lace.  So maybe I'll get inspired and cast on a few more projects.  I really do need more.