First project on the Tia rigid heddle loom
Soon. I'm pretty sure I'll hemstitch it, simply because I've not done that before. So hopefully there will be more information about how this project turned out by the end of the month.
As you can see from the photo, one of my weaving assistants has taken an interest in my project.
Lavori 07/30 doily
I'm still playing around with the charting.
However, I'm getting tired of the dithering. I think most of it will work as charted, with the extra motif in the middle, for several more rounds. (By "as charted", I mean by following the chart but using the second area of hex mesh as a guide for doing the first area, too.)
I want to be knitting on this. So I will slowly start up again and continue looking at charting possibilities until round 173 or so. Round 173 has an issue with either a missing or an extra yarnover just outside of the hex mesh area; I believe it to be a missing yarnover but will confirm when I get there. Sometime in the next several rounds after that will be time for me to have a reasonable adaptation in place to help the hex mesh area look good as it works its way to a proper end. The last few rounds of the doily use a stacked column of (yo, SK2P, yo) in that spot, but I can probably mess around with exactly which round that will start on.
Hobbit Travel Shawl (feather and fan comfort shawl)
This is zipping along. I'm on the second go-through of the general pattern repeat, with 5 sets of motifs per side. The third ball of yarn is mostly gone, and fairly soon I will start on the fourth and final ball of yarn. I still like how it looks. The shawl will be on the small side, as expected, but should be pretty reasonable after blocking.
I'd better start thinking about the next travel project.
Appledore-ish Gansey
I'm on the next iteration (or gauge swatch) of this sweater. I've switched to a big batch of forest green handspun. I started with 160 stitches but soon decided that this would be too big. I cast on again with 144 stitches and so far, so good. I did 16 rounds of k1p1 ribbing and then switched to stockinette, with one purl stitch along each side seam. I've knit until the end of the first skein of yarn. The first skein is the smallest of this batch of handspun, probably in the 90-95 yard range.
It's still a gauge swatch rather than a committed project. It's possible I will unravel it yet again and start over on even fewer stitches, especially if I make it for someone else who has expressed interest in it (as opposed to making it for myself). Soon there will be enough stitches that are far enough away from the needle and the ribbing to get an accurate gauge, I hope. It's going to be close to 4 st/in, but I'm not sure exactly how close.
I do like the fabric I'm getting. So I'll stay with this yarn/needle combo even if I re-start on a different number of stitches. If I do need to restart, hopefully it'll be the last time I need to do that for this sweater.
I cast on using a 3mm needle because it was a really long needle and I wanted to make it easier to not twist when I joined! Also, I wanted to make sure the cast on was relatively loose and relaxed to maintain the elasticity of the lower edge. I used a crochet cast-on, then started immediately in rib as I knit back across the cast-on, and then joined. After a round or two, I switched to the 2.5mm needle for the rest of the ribbing, then returned to the 3mm (a shorter needle) for the body. I decided to keep the same number of stitches for the ribbing and body because I'm lazy and didn't feel like increasing.
The yarn is from the "Castle Rock haul" of roving bumps. I was in a yarn store many years ago that had a table where people could bring in stuff they wanted to sell. The table had a lot of bumps of what I think was some kind of Brown Sheep roving dyed into various colors, all at a really good price. I bought several bumps in different colors, which was only a small fraction of what was there. It's all been spun up and/or given away by now. Most of the bumps spun really consistently into a 2-ply Aran-ish weight. There are some thick-and-thin areas and a few of them ended up a bit slubby, but all of the batches (of the ones that were the same thing even though they were different colors) run approximately the same average thickness. Several batches have already been knit into various projects, mostly the smaller batches. One smallish batch is destined to be an area rug or bag or maybe a small weaving project since it's fairly scratchy. Most of the rest of the remaining batches are enough for sweaters or other large projects.
A true gansey is knit from something that is a lot closer to sock-weight yarn, often at 7-9 stitches per inch. That's why this is gansey-ish rather than the true historic ethnic style.
General Dithering
I've not really worked on any other fiber pursuits since the last post, I don't think.
I'm thinking about a next weaving project but only vaguely so far. I haven't started a new tablet-weaving project, nor sprang, nor braiding, nor inkle. Netting is starting to intrigue me -- the kind used to make fishnets and hammocks and stretchy bags, not the fine needlework version used for hairnets -- but I'm not sure if/when I'll teach myself how to do it. Chances are I would write about most of these on my narrow wares blog rather than on this blog.
I should start a charity hat because it's that time of year. I'm thinking of making another cabled hat or some mittens (or fingerless mitts) from small batches of yarn, whether commercial or handspun. I'd add cowls to that list, but cowls have been irritating my neck lately so I've been using polarfleece against my skin rather than good honest wool and alpaca, alas. I should also think about what I feel like spinning next, and whether I want to go to Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival this year (and what my money-and-storage-space budget might be).
And that's it for this post! Hopefully I'll have the weaving project done by the next post, and ditto for starting to make progress again on the doily, and also making progress on the sweater as it goes from a gauge swatch to an actual planned sweater. A lot of my fiber-related activities are like that -- things in progress at various stages of completion from idea through the process of planning and then execution all the way through to the final finished project. Luckily, there's no rush for most of these.
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