Truly Gorgeous Woven Wrap (from handspun!)

A few posts ago, I mentioned that a friend of mine had taken some of my handspun and woven something with it.

Here's a pic of part of it, taken at an angle.  Isn't it lovely?!!  The stripes are various widths, narrower in the middle and wider at the ends, but all fairly random widths and color progressions overall.  This uses most of four batches of my handspun.  My friend had a bit of leftover yarn in a very contrasting color that had been dyed for a different project, so that got added, too.

The weaving is amazing.  The wrap is amazing -- beautiful and soft and cozy.  My friend said that weaving my not-so-good batches of handspun was like having a conversation with the weaving.  If there was a stretch that was too thick or thin or uneven, adjustments were made with an extra or an omitted throw of the shuttle.

Here are the batches of handspun.  None are particularly well spun, sorry to say.  They're all slightly different thicknesses, probably, as well as having some thick-and-thin areas and occasional neps and what-not.

These skeins are from natural-dyed roving, in cutch (brown), Himalayan rhubarb (yellow), and kermes (red), all mordanted with alum.  The roving is white merino/dorset (I think the sheep is a crossbred sheep, not that the roving is a blend).

I dyed and spun these many years ago and they've been sitting in my stash ever since.  I liked them well enough but couldn't figure out what I wanted to do with them.  The kermes is a bit of an odd color, I thought.

This is a batch of yarn I spun from a mystery batt of mixed colors and textures.  The baggie it was in was labeled as Shetland, but who knows.  The batt consisted of some mixed shades of brown and mustard and green, with some neps and bloops of the same colors and more.  As expected, the yarn is somewhat textured.

The final yarn, as I wrote above, was leftover dyed wool yarn from another project my friend wove.  It is a very dark purple, almost but not quite black.

The warp was also commercially-spun yarn, some kind of white wool.

Anyway, I think it is amazing.  It's so different from knitting.  The way the warp and weft interact really give it a different feel.  Colors that would look kind of meh if knitted up (unless added to a larger project) really pop and meld when woven up like this.

Needless to say, I'm hoping to give lots more handspun to my friend.  I'm also looking forward to seeing what happens with the other handspun skeins that were part of this first batch.

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Apparently I am knitting Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride at 4 stitches per inch, 2-stranded.  The target circumference for the gift socks is about 9" rather than 8".  So, my sock was unraveled and I started over on 36 stitches.  I'm past the heel on the first sock.  The two very similar colors of Lamb's Pride look really nice together.  They're just different enough to add a bit of depth.  I hope the tighter than expected gauge will lead to higher durability.  I'm easy on socks, but I don't know about my friend.

I've started yet another charity hat, same yarn and everything as the last one.

I'm still dithering on a Next Sweater.  And the Miami Vice shawl is getting closer to done.

Next Sweater dithering (and a few other boring progress reports)

The just-finished Appledore Gansey sweater, with a quick/basic blocking, on the recipient, over the layers already being worn.  Yay, it fits!  It is still a little too loose in the shoulders and upper arms for my liking, though I didn't really adjust the sweater before snapping a pic.  I think much of that is a style and body type thing -- it probably would have been more flattering on someone with wider shoulders and/or a burlier upper body.  But it's done and in the possession of the Intended Recipient, who is very pleased with it.  The recipient often wears multiple layers, especially in winter, so oversized enough so that lower layers don't bunch up is not a bad thing.

The handspun worked very well for the sweater.

Now on to the next thing(s).

I'm almost done with the latest charity hat, so I'll get that finished up and start the next one.

I'm doing some quick gift socks for a friend.  I'm using two strands of Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride (worsted weight, 80% wool 20% mohair, single ply) from the stash.  I felt like doing top-down generic socks, so I'll have to get my actual gauge after a few inches of knitting.  I'm starting with 32 stitches but might need to go down to 28 or even up to 36.  But I think this will be OK.  The friend wants these to be slipper socks that will felt a bit especially while being worn, so a little big isn't a problem, not to mention that one needs a bit more ease for fat yarn.

I'm not completely sure how much yarn these will take, given my friend's foot measurements.  Eh, maybe I'll just keep on knitting socks (for various people) once this pair is done, until the skeins I'm using are done.  I have 2 skeins of dark teal green and 4 skeins of dark aqua/turquoise in a shade that is very similar to the green.  I'm using one strand of green and one of blue, held together, mostly so that the socks will be quick to knit and very warm, but also since a single ply tends not to be as durable as a multi-ply, and 2 strands of single ply yarn will hopefully be more durable than one.

I ended up with someone else's remnant Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride stash, all seconds, mostly 2-3 but sometimes 4 skeins per color.  The thing about seconds is that sometimes the yardage is short, or there are lots of knots, or there are funky bits in the skeins.  I've slowly been going through it.  I'm looking at some of what's left and seeing three skeins of a light brown, three skeins of a heathered gray, and two skeins of black, all of which kind of go together.  So...  that's enough for a sweater, if I can figure out what I want to make.  I also have oddments from old projects over the years in a variety of colors that could be added.

Stripes.  Those are easy.  But.  I usually look pretty terrible in horizontal stripes.  Also, there would be ends.  So many ends.  I could do helical/narrow stripes, maybe, though there might be some weirdness where the sleeves join the body if I don't calculate it exactly right.

Color patterns.  A lot of fun.  But, things like Lopi-style yoke-patterning usually require a main color of about 800 yards, and I have a bit less than 600 yards.  But not impossible.  Fair-isle is another possibility, especially if it's enlivened with leftovers in contrasting colors.  Faroese style color patterns could be interesting -- alternating gray and brown stripes with simple black color patterns on each.  But then we get back to stripes, lots of ends, unattractive, etc.

 

There are some ideas in Knitting in the Nordic Tradition by Vibeke Lind -- not only a few sweaters with Faroese and other small motifs, but also her vertically-knit striped smocks, which would be straightforward but would require seaming.

I don't do steeks, by the way, so patterns get adapted around that.  I don't fear cutting the yarn. I fear wanting to unravel a disappointing project to reuse the yarn and having zillions of cut ends that aren't easily reusable.  And maybe that too is part of why I don't want to knit stripes.  Though usually I carry the yarn ends up inside the sweater and only cut them and sew them in when the sweater is finished and I'm content with the results.  In my experience, sewing in the ends carefully makes the smoothest-looking stripes in circular knitting.  Nothing else I've tried has been as unobtrusive.  Though honestly I'm fine with jogs and not worrying about it.

Hmm, EZ's bog jacket is a possibility, too.  I've made a baby bog but not an adult bog.  That too requires seaming.  The stretch of kitchener stitch is long enough that it also counts as seaming, at least in my opinion.  A ribwarmer, maybe, since 600-ish yards (i.e. 3 skeins) might be just about enough to make with one of the three-skein colors?  I've already knit a 3-skein vest from the Lamb's Pride Seconds stash, so if the yarn usage is comparable, then it'll work.  EZ also has a few vertically-knit panel sweaters, similar to ones in Lind's book but usually mostly done in garter.  In general, EZ has seaming in her garter stitch sweaters.  Though, sigh, I can seam stuff even if it's not my favorite thing to do.

There are Yet Other possibilities out there, from my various pattern collections, Ravelry, etc.

Or I could throw this pile of yarn back in the stash.  Or make things that aren't sweaters.

I do want to make another sweater, though, now that the Appledore-ish gansey is done.  Colors, cables, gansey, something plain, interesting construction, real pattern, vague template, etc., so many options.  Ditto for yarn choices.  I've been conscientious about acquiring sweater quantities of yarn for a while, and there are plenty of good choices available in my stash, both handspun and commercial yarns.  I still have lots of oddballs and odd quantities, too.

Now that everyone is all bored, I'll go back to the hat and socks and continue dithering about the next sweater-equivalent project.

A finished item -- my handspun Appledore (ish) gansey (ish)

Almost a year to the date from when I finally cast on, with this yarn and this number of stitches etc., my Appledore Gansey is finished!

I still need to tuck in the ends and block it, but I am excited that it's done and want to write about it now instead of later.  I know I've written about it before and thus this might be repetitive, but too bad!  It's my blog and I'll bore if I want to.

This started with me being intrigued by the Appledore Gansey in Rae Compton's Complete Book of Traditional Guernsey and Jersey Knitting.  I liked the plainness of the gansey, livened by a bit of decoration on the shoulder straps.

The traditional Appledore gansey is a plain gansey with all the trimmings -- a side seam in purl, underarm gussets, one-piece knitting of a drop-shoulder design with the sleeves picked up and knit down after the shoulders were joined, and shoulder straps.  I'm not 100% sure what the traditional range of patterns for the shoulder straps would encompass.  Betty Martin (often rig and furrow strips then betty martin strips, alternating) and seed stitch are what I see in modern patterns and most old photos.  A lot of old photos are fairly indistinct so aren't too discernable in the books and websites I have available to me, so I don't really know what other shoulder strap patterns were used by the Appledore knitters.

There's also a photo on page 2 of Beth Brown-Reisel's Knitting Ganseys that shows a plain gansey with only rig-and-furrow on the shoulder straps.  The photo is from the Sutcliffe Studio, and I have no idea if those ganseys were a specialty of anywhere in particular.  Google searching for the photos has not yet led me to any more info, alas, though I suppose I could email BB-R and ask her.

I wanted to use stash yarn for my version, and in particular, handspun.  This meant that I needed to reconfigure the pattern for my new gauge.  Also, my handspun is not uber-smooth like traditional gansey yarn, so knit-purl patterns aren't necessary going to show to good advantage, especially with the not-so-fine gauge.

So, it's gansey-ish rather than a classic gansey made with the traditional fine machine-spun yarn.  And it's Appledore-ish since the shoulder strap pattern is rig-and-furrow rather than a documented knit/purl design like betty martin or seed stitch.

For those who care, Rig and Furrow is a name for stockinette and reverse stockinette stripes.  Purl-knit-knit-purl for a 4-row pattern repeat, though one can adapt for all kinds of variations.  Seed Stitch is alternating knit-purl on one row with purl-knit on the next.  Betty Martin is 2 rows of k2p2 followed by 2 rows of stockinette, with the k2p2 blocks usually but not always aligning with each other.

My first attempt was several years ago.  I got to the point where back and front would split and decided I didn't like it.  I had put in a reverse-stockinette horizontal ridge just about the ribbing and decided it looked really stupid.  Plus the yarn was pink and, well, it was a bit TOO pink for my current tastes.  So I took it apart and returned the yarn to my stash.

My second attempt was sometime in 2025.  I tried a different batch of handspun.  After a few inches, I decided it wasn't quite right and unraveled that, too.

My third attempt began last September, with a batch of dark forest green handspun that was roughly Aran weight.  I don't have a great photo of the yarn, alas, or I'd inflict it on y'all.  Maybe later.

A family member wandered by during my planning and swatching and expressed interest in receiving a handknit sweater, so I declared them the Intended Recipient and took their measurements.

Rae Compton and Beth Brown-Reisel and Gladys Thompson (Guernsey and Jersey Patterns) all have extended discussions on gansey construction and patterning.  BB-R also has percentage charts for adapting the gansey idea to one's own gauge and measurements.  Elizabeth Zimmermann's percentage system and the templates with percentages in Priscilla Gibson-Roberts' Knitting in the Old Way also helped me figure things out.

There are some great online resources, too.  I don't remember all of them, but I'll call out Gansey Nation (http://www.ganseys.com/) and the info and links from the Museum of Barnstaple and North Devon (https://barnstaplemuseum.org.uk/ourstories/dressed-for-chill-the-appledore-gansey/) and also photos and write-ups of Josephine Sim's pattern from the booklet by John Whitlock and her, even though I don't own it (yet), Prangs, Tacks and Frocks, which can be found scattered throughout the internet.  Places like Propagansey and other specialty websites, various other museum sites, and the Ravelry gansey forum (Guernseys, Ganseys, Knit-Frocks - Fishermans' Sweaters) were also helpful and inspiring.

Armed with schematics, percentages, and technique tips, and a probably-lying gauge swatch, I cast on.  Then measured my real gauge, unraveled, re-calculated the numbers, and cast on again.

It went well.  Knit knit knit.  Then I had to make some decisions and put the knitting down.  It sat for several months.  Well, who needs a warm sweater when it's summer?

A few weeks ago, we got our first taste of autumn.  I was inspired to pick up the knitting again.  My subconscious had made all the decisions I had dithered about earlier.  And I knit knit knit until it was done.  YAY!!!!!

It fits the intended recipient.

It's a little big in the upper arm area.  It might be better for someone with burlier shoulders.  But also, when I came back to it this month, I ended up making the above-underarm area a bit deeper than I had initially planned.  I had started the underarm gussets a bit early so the sweater was a bit too short for the intended recipient's preferences, and thus I added more above the underarms to get to the total desired length.  I didn't feel like ripping it all the way back to the start of the gussets.

But other than that, I'm very pleased with it.

The neck opening before the final ribbing was also kind of enormous, since I added more length to the upper body after I'd started the front neck shaping.  But amazingly and wonderfully, the ribbing took care of that.  I reduced a lot of stitches after picking up for the collar/edge and it didn't pucker or gap or anything, yay.

Dunno if I could have or should have done something similar for the upper sleeves.  I'll consider that for next time, though.

Something interesting I noticed:  Usually, there's a small gap between the body and sleeves when everything is joined up or picked up and knit down or whatever.  I use the yarn tails to close up holes.  With the underarm gussets, there was no gap at all, no loose spots or holes or anything.

I used almost exactly 900 yards and still have 350-ish yards of the yarn left.  That'll return to my stash for some future project.

Hmm, what sweater do I want to make next?  And who shall it be for?

For ganseys, I like the very common seeds-and-bars design, so that's a possibility.  But maybe I'll do something with cables.  Or an Elizabeth Zimmermann design.  Or something else entirely, of course.  I haven't done a Lopi sweater in a while, for example, and someone is willing to buy the yarn if they get the sweater.

I'm close to done with my traveling shawl project, too.  Soon I'll have to come up with a new travel project.

Other than that, I'm doing charity hats and will probably knit some house socks for a friend.  I need to go through my stash to see what I have that would be suitable for thick-and-quick socks.  The friend wants the socks to felt a bit with wear, so that will also be taken into consideration.

I should do some spinning.  And do a write-up on another of my rescued spinning wheels.

The friend who took some of my handspun to try weaving with has made a truly amazing and gorgeous wrap.  That too will be in a future post.

More spinning -- Debouillet!

I have finished spinning a 4-ounce batch of Debouillet roving.  It seemed to be taking a long time.  I understand why now.  The 4 ounces of Debouillet (give or take a bit) yielded about 665-670 yards of 2-ply yarn.

The roving had some VM and a few neps and noils.  But it drafted beautifully.  It was relatively short-stapled though not excessively short, very fine and soft, and kind of sproingy/bouncy, a bit like merino though lacking its cottony texture and more like Rambouillet.  Well, duh -- the Debouillet breed of sheep was started with a Rambouillet-Merino cross.  (The Delaine Merino, to be precise, thus the name Debouillet.)

I've spun Debouillet before -- a bit of brown roving that gave me 365-ish yards of a somewhat shiny 2-ply from about 3 ounces of roving.

The white yarn I just spun is more matte than shiny, even though both rovings were from sheep of the same breed.

Dunno what I'll do with the yarn.

I'm not sure what I'll spin next, but hopefully the default yarn from that future batch won't be so fine!  (Default yarn meaning the yarn I naturally spin without having to think about it, which is a function of the roving and the wheel and my mood, but mostly the roving and its drafting friction and how that interacts with the wheel I'm using to spin it.)  I don't mind having fine yarn, but it takes longer to spin than thicker yarn.  And sometimes I want that quicker gratification.  I don't really want to engineer my yarn, either, since I spin for the sheer enjoyment of it rather than to create a specific yarn.  I like zoning out as I spin rather than counting treadles and continuously referring to a reference sample for thickness and all those other things needed to create a consciously designed yarn.

A bit of spinning -- Lopez Island Romney X

I finally spun the Romney-X roving I bought last autumn at Oregon Flock and Fiber.  I ended up with about 375 yards of 2-ply, so rather a bit thinner than the 250 yards of 2-ply I spun from the previous year's Romney-X roving.

It's pretty.  It drafted well.  It was fairly clean, very minimal VM that was easy to pick out.  It was an enjoyable spinning experience, which is pretty much all I ask for most of the time when I sit down at a wheel.  It's a nice medium heathery gray, in case the color in the photo isn't clear.

The vendor I got it from is Island Fibers, from Lopez Island in Washington.  The first time I bought from them, I think they said that this was milled by Skagit Wool.  They said it was from the local sheep, who had mostly Romney genetics with random other breeds in the gene pool.  Whatever it is, I like spinning it.  I have no idea if what I bought last fall is from the exact same bump as I had bought from the previous year, or if it's a new batch from a later clip.

Part of why I spun this is because I got inspired -- I went to Black Sheep Gathering with some friends last weekend.  It was fun.  It didn't seem to have as many people and animals and vendors as I had remembered, but it's always possible I'm getting it confused with Oregon Flock and Fiber since both are in the same location and are similar in a lot of ways.  Or it's just completely random and the day/time I went are not as busy as other days/times.

As always, it was great to see the critters and explore the vendors' offerings, and as always, it's great to run into friends and acquaintances while I'm there.

This time I bought some horned dorset roving, about 4 oz.  I asked the vendor, and they said it's somewhat resistant to felting, which is what I'd heard is a breed characteristic.  So maybe I'll make socks from this.  Or something else that I don't necessarily want to felt easily.  I've spun roving from crossbred merino-dorset, but not purebred dorset.  It should be interesting.

I brought some handspun over to a friend who weaves.  It'll be their first time weaving with handspun.  I look forward to the results.  If it works out, I'll bring over more.  I love using my handspun, but I don't mind if some of it gets used by other people.  Also, maybe it'll inspire me to weave some of my handspun in addition to knitting with it.

There's not much to report on the knitting side of things.  My slowly growing projects are slowly growing and I haven't started (or finished) anything new.  I've been doing a lot of tablet weaving and braiding and what-not, but I don't really write about those things in this blog.

Hmm, what shall I spin next?  Or knit, for that matter?  Though I really do want to finish the sweater I started last year, so the recipient can wear it later this year.  For spinning, I have a bunch of 4 oz batches of roving bought at various fiber festivals as well as some larger batches.  Hmmm.

Sweaters, doilies, and shawls (progress reports, mostly)

This is mostly a progress report kind of post, which is very much what the current purpose of the blog is.

Lavori 07/30:  I decided to follow the chart as closely as possible, with one extra hex mesh motif in the middle of the hex mesh section.  This will take me through round 181 with no further adjustments.

There's a chart error/typo on round 173.  I think I wrote about it earlier.  But yes, given that I'm following the chart, more or less, there is a missing yarnover on the left side of the hex mesh motif.  There is a yarnover that will separate the leaf tips from the rest of the leaf motif.

There are also chart errors/typos on rounds 175, 177, and 179.  The second decreasing leaf motif, before the outer fans motif, have a yarnover inside the leaves.  They look like (skp, kX, yo, k2t) instead of (skp, kX, k2t), which is what they are supposed to be and what all the other decreasing leaf tips are.  X in this case is 7, then 5, then 3.  It's pretty obvious when you get there after you're over the first slight bit of confusion.  Round 179 has an additional chart error/typo, in the last of the increasing leaf motifs.  There's a missing yarnover -- it should be k2, yo, k-tbl, yo, k2, like all of the other increasing leaf motifs in the round.

I started another ball of thread near the beginning of round 175 (near the end of the second pattern repeat).  This one looks like it's close to a full ball, and the full ball was labeled as containing 500 yards.  Will it be enough to get me all the way to the end of the doily?  I suspect not, but I'm hopeful anyway.  The rounds already have roughly 1000 stitches per round and the number of stitches per round is going to keep increasing rapidly all the way to the end of the doily as the outer fan motifs develop.

I am confident that I will have enough thread to finish the doily, since after this final partial ball is finished, I still have 3 full balls (350 yards each) that I can use.  The remainder should be enough for another fairly large doily, or if not, then a few smaller doilies.

Travel project shawl:  I'm toodling along on the Miami Vice shawl.  It's not a half pi -- it's pretty much a full pi, though knit flat rather than in the round.  I've only done a few inches and already have over 200 stitches per row on the needle.  Oh, well.  I have 980 yards of yarn that will be knit one stitch at a time, whether the project increases stitches slowly or rapidly.  Hopefully I don't get any annoying stacking of the variegation in the stretches where the stitch count remains relatively constant.  I guess I'll find out!

Appledore Gansey -- still coming along nicely.

Hmm, I really could use another project.  Mittens or fingerless mitts?  A hat?  Socks?

And, because we're having lovely sweater weather, let me share a pic of a sweater I finished and then narble on about it for a few paragraphs.

Elizabeth Zimmermann Seamless Hybrid sweater (from handspun)

This is a sweater made from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Seamless Hybrid pattern.  It's one of the percentage-based recipes in her book Knitting Without Tears, though I used the version that is in the revised edition of Knitting Workshop.

It's called a hybrid because the upper area (above the armholes) starts out like a raglan and then transitions to a wide saddle shoulder.  There's also a back saddle, sort of like a yoke but not quite.

Hmm, I should probably take some better photos to show the details more clearly.

I knit mine from some handspun.  When I bought the roving bump, I was told it was "mostly merino".  I have no idea if that is true, but the sweater is definitely soft enough to wear next to the skin.  The yarn is a 2-ply in a dark maroon color with flecks of blue and purple.  The edges are garter stitch and the rest is stockinette.

There were a few things I had to rip and re-do since my initial calculations were a bit off.  No big deal.  There were a few spots that looked a bit odd until after blocking.  Again, no big deal, and I have enough knitting experience to not immediately assume the worst when things look weird before blocking.

On the whole, though, I'm very fond of this sweater and very pleased at how it turned out.  It's warm and comfortable and attractive.  I've already been wearing it this autumn.

I have several ounces of the yarn left, not that I have any good ideas what to do with it yet.  It might or might not be enough for a vest.  At one point, I was turning all my oddballs into socks, but I'm not sure I want to do that with a soft merino yarn.  So for now, I smile at it when I go stash-diving into the handspun stash.

Today's meaningless post (progress reports plus a doily pic)

 Roll call on my projects!

Tia Rigid Heddle Loom First Weaving Project

The piece is off the loom.  I hem-stitched the ends.  That was a new thing for me!  I went around four warp threads and up two weft threads.  The instructions I was using went from left to right.  I don't know if that's the usual direction, but it felt very much like I was sewing left-handed.  The stitches are a bit uneven, of course, but were getting better by the time I was done.

Then I soaked the piece in water for a long time.

The red runs.  Runs and runs and runs, even with lots of direct rinsing.  So the white is now a somewhat blotchy off-white.  I don't believe all the excess red is gone, either!

The so-called magic where everything supposedly gets relaxed and filled in?  Didn't happen.  Maybe that's because this is cotton?  Or it needs a hot-water washer and dryer experience (with plenty of soap in the wash), ironing, a bit of abuse, or something beyond what I did?  The bits that are uneven are probably more obvious since the warp and weft are so contrasting in color.  It's not hugely uneven, but enough for me to notice.

So, now I have a striking yet not terribly attractive piece of weaving, yay!  I don't know if I'll do anything with it or just toss it into my samplers and prototypes box.

I mean, it's not terrible.  As a beginner piece, it is perfectly fine.  I learned a lot by doing it, and feel very ready to tackle the next project.

Fresh off the loom, it was 9.5" wide and 52" long.  After the long soak and then hanging it to dry, it's about 9" wide and still 52" long.  I haven't cut the excess warp length yet.

I'm not sure what I'll weave next, and whether it'll be on this loom or another of the small looms floating around the household or borrowed from friends.

Lavori 07/30 Doily Progress and Chart Error(s)

I've knit a couple of rounds, yay!

As I wrote earlier, for round 165 and beyond, I'm following the basic pattern set up that was established in previous rounds.  That means that the first set of hex mesh needs one more hex mesh motif (k2tog, yox2, ssk) for all the rounds until further notice.  The second set is fine as charted through round 169.

Round 169:  This should start with a 1Mv.  In other words, the last stitch of round 167 will become the first stitch of 169.  (When you reach the end of round 168, move the last stitch to the beginning of the next round before starting the chart.)

I'm still looking at the charts to see how I want to handle the discrepancy once I move to the 12 PR/rnd chart.  It becomes more of an issue when a leaf closes up and the double-decrease of the leaf tip needs to merge into the hex mesh.  Plus there's still the extra-or-missing? issue of the asymmetric yarnover placement in round 173.

Hobbit Shawl (F&F Comfort Shawl travel project)

I'm on the last ball of yarn.  This has been going much faster than I expected!  I still like the shawl.  It seems like it'll be an OK size after blocking.

It's turned out to not actually be a great travel project because I can't keep track of things when I'm in meetings and stuff.  I need to be able to count every now and then!  Plus knowing if I'm on the right or wrong side of the shawl also turns out to be important.

I might make another of these after this one is done, using some other batch of yarn.  It's a good pattern for yarn with a longish variegation and/or lots of small batches of this and that.

Appledore Gansey

This seems to be going pretty well at the moment.  My gauge does seem to be 4 st/in in stockinette, whew.  I'm on the second skein of handspun.  I seem to have chosen the largest skein after the smallest, but that doesn't matter.

At this point in the sweater, it's actually a better travel project than the Hobbit Shawl.  I have to re-measure the intended recipient so I know when to begin the underarm gusset but there's a fair amount of knitting to do before I get close to the underarm.

I like how it looks so far.

Etc.

I'll be traveling a bit in the next few weeks, possibly including a bit of camping.  I think I'll bring some Red Heart acrylic and #7 needles and make k1p1 hats for charity.  That's if I do anything, of course -- I feel more comfortable having a project with me even if I never touch it.

I don't remember what else I'm thinking about starting -- just the usual cloud of "maybe I should do X!" that follows me around much of the time.

Doily Pic!  (Erich Engeln #60E)

It's been a while since I've included a doily pic.

This is a pattern by Erich Engeln, #60E, i.e., the E pattern in pamphlet 60.  It's small but cute, though I say that about almost any doily I knit.  It has 30 rounds.  Apparently there are a few design quirks, but I didn't write down what, if anything, they were.  Clearly it could stand to be re-blocked, assuming I still have it around and haven't given it away.

I knit this many years ago, probably in the first several years I was knitting doilies.  I think it might have been the first Erich Engeln pattern I knowingly knit.  Maybe that's why I noted the design quirks -- his designs and charting styles are distinctive, possibly in a way I had not previously encountered.

A group of us on one of the old lace mailing lists did a group order from the person who had the rights to sell copies of Erich Engeln's patterns.  We bought a complete set of the pamphlets, all photocopied but still quite legal.  I think there were close to 100 pamphlets -- tons of lovely designs to knit, all in Erich Engeln's distinctive charting style.  This doily is one of those designs.

Doing an international group order like we did is the Doily Underground in action.

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.

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.

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.

Zimmermania!

I've been on an Elizabeth Zimmermann kick lately.  Well, always, really.  I like her approach to designing and knitting.

The latest is Cully's Epaulet Jacket from Knitting Workshop.  I used the pattern in the expanded edition, since my original edition is so old that it doesn't contain the pattern.  I used handspun at its own idiosyncratic gauge and re-figured the numbers to work for me.

I really like how it turned out.  Thick-and-thin, fuzzy, bulky black yarn totally works for this pattern.  The I-cord trim is very nice, too.  It is handspun as well, from some old Beast roving that I had dyed in shades of green many years ago.  The black yarn is from an Icelandic sheep.  I spindle-spun the yarn from roving (cloud batts, actually) that included both thog and thel.

This pattern is interesting in that it gives numbers for a bunch of different sizes, but doesn't seem to have the totally generic, customizable pattern directions that many of Zimmermann's other patterns seem to have.  No matter.  A trace of percentages and modularity is apparent in the pattern.  It was pretty easy to re-figure the necessary numbers.

The sweater seems like a top-down, garter-stitch variation of some of EZ's hybrid-ish, saddle-shoulder-ish, Brooks-ish sweaters.

Epaulet Jacket

The garment looks good on most people who have tried it on so far.

I would make another one right away except that there are many other sweater designs of hers I'd like to knit.  Someday I'll make another.  It was great fun to knit and I love how it looks and fits.

Another EZ sweater I've knit fairly recently is her Icelandic Overblouse from Knit One Knit All.  That one seems closely related to her Nalgar sweater.  It is knit in two pieces (one front and one back), in garter stitch, then seamed.

Since I knit this sweater is some pencil roving of a totally different gauge from the yarn the pattern actually calls for, re-calculating of the numbers was necessary.

I like how the sweater turned out.  It is lightweight but fairly warm, at least for situations where there is no wind, such as indoors.

Icelandic Overblouse

It is not as universally flattering as the Epaulet Jacket is.  Part of that might be the yarn choice, I suspect.  I'm glad I knit it, but at the moment I do not feel any need to knit it again.

The next EZ sweater I want to knit will probably also be from Knit One Knit All.  Unless, of course, it is not.

Over the years, I've made several percentage sweaters.  I've made the baby bog jacket, the tomten, the ribwarmer, the February baby sweater.  No baby surprise jackets yet, but no doubt some kind of surprise jacket is in my future.  I've made hats and mittens and socks and shawls and many other things.  A very small selection is shown in the photos below.

Vertical Brimmed Hat from Knit One Knit All

February Square Shawl (or baby blanket) from Knitter's Almanac

Horizontal Brimmed Hat from Knit One Knit All

Pi Shawl from Knitter's Almanac

One thing I haven't done yet, though, is steeks.  I'm not afraid of cutting my yarn.  I simply don't want to.

Elizabeth Zimmermann is one of the biggest influences on my knitting career.  Back when most knitting instruction was on the order of "follow my directions exactly and too bad for you if it doesn't work out", she explained theory well enough to free me to design my own things, at my own gauge, to fit any body shape or size that I desired.

The most recent project I started is yet another EZ design.  I'm doing a Pi Are Square shawl (from Knitting Around) from handspun.  A friend of mine was wearing one at a recent knitting group gathering.  I had not yet seen one in person, so had been dubious.  However, the shawl turns out to be quite attractive and very wearable.  It hangs nicely in the front without slipping off.  The back is long enough yet shorter than a triangle shawl, which means that there is no point to hang below my butt and get in the way of everything.  So I went home, rummaged through the stash, and cast on.  So far, so good.

I'll probably sneak in a few more projects while the shawl is going on.  Maybe another Maltese Fisherman's hat or another Horizontal Brimmed Hat.  Or some slippers.  Or another shawl, or a vest.  Or I can start the next sweater from another batch of handspun.  So many possibilities!  Thank you, Elizabeth Zimmermann.

Another decade, another sweater

Well, maybe not quite that bad. But I am not a very prolific sweater knitter.



This is the sweater I've been mumbling about for a while. I've done several rounds of rip-and-redo. Finally, I figured out exactly what I wanted to do. And then the knitting went smoothly.

The entire sweater is knit from spindle-spun yarn. I dyed the colored yarn; the gray and white are natural.

The body of the sweater is from a friend's Icelandic sheep. She had sent the fleece to a new processor and didn't like the results, so I ended up with it. It wasn't the easiest thing to spin. But it was fun anyway. The yarn is mostly bulky, thick and thin with slubs. I actually do like it a lot. It's white with some black hairs.

The rest of the sweater yarn is from commercial roving, though I'm not sure exactly what. Some of it was used two-stranded, since my normal spinning is quite a bit thinner than the Icelandic yarn is. It's from my Yarn Library, which is what I call all those small amounts of hand-spun and hand-dyed yarn I've accumulated over the years.

The yoke pattern is adapted from a pattern I found on the Istex website's free pattern page.

The sweater style is the typical Icelandic round-yoke pattern. I made it up as I went along, though it is mostly based on Elizabeth Zimmermann's percentage system.

I finished it just in time for today's very cold weather. I'm wearing it now as I type this.

I think I might have enough of the Icelandic left for a second sweater, especially if I add even more color-patterning. This was fun to knit and I like the results, so.... Check back in a few years to see if it ever happens. I also have a couple of other batches of yarn in quantities sufficient for a sweater.

In the last post, so many months ago, I wrote about Opal socks I was starting to knit. Here's a photo of what they looked like back then. As you can see, it's a simple toe-knit plain sock.



The socks were finished soon after that post. I don't have a photo of the finished socks. Since then, I've knit a few other pairs. One sock was highly annoying. I knit it two-stranded. When it was done, I discovered that it was too tight! That's not very common for me. Usually, I know my gauge, I measure as I go, and I try on socks as I go. Oh, well. I unraveled it for future socks. Unraveling and re-winding a ball of yarn that has been knit two-stranded is Not Fun. But it is done.

My latest travel-knitting project is yet another scarf. It is based on a pattern from the May/June 2010 issue of Piecework by Galina Khmeleva. The original pattern is a very lovely and elegant wrap, a large rectangular scarf with fringe on both ends knit from laceweight merino/silk. Mine is a humble scarf knit in a thicker (and very fuzzy) mohair blend yarn. I took the honeycomb lace stitch pattern and went from there.

An open stitch pattern such as this really makes the yarn go a long way! The scarf is getting longer and longer and longer. I still have plenty of yarn left. Soon I will decide that it is Long Enough and that will be that. I'm not sure what I'll do with the leftover mohair. Will there be enough left for a cowl or neck-warmer? I can combine it with the leftover mohair from the other mohair scarf I did, the dark blue one with a cable and lace design.



The photo below is a close-up of the lace pattern. It's garter-based. It's very easy to knit -- two rows of one kind of knitting followed by two rows of another. The only stitches are knit, yarnover, and knit two together. The lace is quite open with no blocking whatsoever. There is a slight bias, though. I'll probably give it the usual minor wet-blocking treatment after it's done.



I might write out the pattern for others to use. If you like it, I urge you to check out Piecework. Galina Khmeleva has been publishing beautiful patterns there for a while.

There's been more knitting and spinning and crocheting and what-not since my last post. But it's all pretty boring, nothing worth going into unless/until I have photos. I don't even have any good doily-knitting photos to share.

I'm not sure what I'll be making next. Hats. Mittens. Scarves. Shawls. Another sweater, perhaps. Maybe a doily. In other words, the usual.