Time for another progress report!

 I haven't posted since last month, yikes!

Knitting and what-not is still happening, though I've been very busy with things unrelated to having fun with fiber.

I haven't started any new doilies yet.

My travel shawl is still growing.  I'm on the second (and final) ball of yarn.

I'm not sure how much of it will get used as I finish up the actual pattern.  Then, once the pattern (as written) is finished, and if there is yarn left, I'll need to decide what to do.

I could grow the pattern a bit more -- add another band or two in the same style.

I could add a sideways-knit lace border.

Or, if there's enough yarn left, call it good, and then make a pair of socks or fingerless mitts.

I have no idea how large the shawl will be once it's blocked.  It's kind of a weird little shoulder-sized poncho thing at the moment.

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My sweater has had close to zero progress since the last time I wrote about it.  Hopefully I'll return to it soon since I'd like to get it done.

No pics, because what's the point?

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I have started a new project, though!  It's a crocheted baby blanket.  A friend of mine ended up with a stash of acrylic baby yarn, and asked all of us if we'd like to take some yarn to make baby blankets.  The blankets are destined for a local shelter that serves women with children.

I'm holding two yarns together.  One is something like Woolease, mostly acrylic with a bit of wool, in white with a bit of mylar.  I can't resist the sparkles.  The other is some skinny boucle-ish thing in shades of green and yellow.

I'm doing a very simple pattern.  Chain a likely number of stitches.  Then, all rows are dc, ch1, with the dc going into the space of the ch1 of the previous row.  Once the blanket is roughly square, I'll probably do a round or two of dc for the edging, estimating how many dcs will be needed so that nothing ruffles or binds, and then maybe a round of crab stitch to finish off.  If I'm feeling it, I'll switch to a different yarn for the edging -- that same boucle yarn but in yellow rather than green-and-yellow.

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I went to the first local fiber fair of the season this month.  I hadn't intended to buy anything, but, well, 4 ounces of a pretty gray Romeldale roving followed me home.  It's a blend from several different sheep, white and dark, which overall reads as a medium gray.

I guess I'll need to drag out a spinning wheel and do some spinning in order to keep my fiber stash at steady state or better!

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So there's my relatively meager progress report for the past month or so.

A new year, a new doily (and a new post!)

This is another doily in Lavori 7.  This one is Figure 15 Sottovaso.  It has 80 rounds and, as you can see, 8 pattern repeats per round with 16 pattern repeats per round in the outer part of the doily.

It is very silly looking.  So I decided I wanted to make it.

It might be a Niebling pattern, given those outer sets of fans, and also given the silly stuff that happens early on in the doily.

The early doily has several rounds of twisted stitches, which isn't all that unusual, I suppose.  I twisted them in the intermediate rounds since it helps define the columns so well.  And then the columns of twisted stitches turn into columns of crossed stitches.  That (complicated stuff early in the doily, including crossed stitches) is more commonly found in Niebling designs than in patterns known to be created by other designers.  So maybe.

The outer sets of fans are the thing where two or three fan motifs are next to each other with a double yarnover between the fans, as I did in the Lavori 07/30 doily and many others.  As far as I can tell (i.e., from a quick glance), there are no rounds that begin and end with yarnovers.

I rummaged through my collection of vintage threads and found something that might be #30, and, if it's a full rather than a partial ball of thread, might have about 300 yards.  If that's not enough, I found another partial ball (I am nearly 100% sure that's it's partial) of similar-weight thread in a color that's not too different.  I don't care if the outer rounds are slightly different in color from the earlier rounds.

Yesterday was the cast-on day.  Fun fun!

As often happens, I get tired of dpns somewhere in the early slog and try to move to a circular needle a little bit too soon.  So the next few rounds were a bit annoying, as I used variations on the two-circulars and the magic-loop methods until I had enough stitches, and more importantly, enough diameter, to fit on my circular with no more fuss.

I don't always end up doing that, but really, I should know better.  But the dpns kept trying to slither out of the knitted stitches, and it was annoying doing crossed stitches and horizontal-running-thread increases and I wanted to be done with the dpns.

I don't have high hopes for this doily given it's less than well defined motifs in the pic above, but we'll see.  Once I get past the section with so many crossed stitches, the rest seems relatively straightforward and hopefully a bit quicker to knit.

Then I can ruminate on what doily project I might feel like tackling next.

My sweater is growing again -- I'm knitting the back above the armhole.  I'm still vaguely dithering about whether I want to put a couple of short rows in there somewhere.  Quite possibly.  Then I can do the front, and I'll probably do a dropped area in the middle to shape the neck area.  Then the shoulder straps!  Those will require a bit more dithering, too.  I also have to decide how many inches to knit for the front and back before the shoulder straps so that the sweater will fit well and so that the sleeves will have a reasonable number of stitches.

My travel shawl is continuing to grow, too.  Soon I'll be done with the current set of eyelets.  Then it'll be time for another round of increases.  I'm getting close to the end of the first skein of yarn.  It's a bit soon, but I'm already thinking a bit about ways to make the shawl bigger if I still have a lot of yarn left after the official pattern reaches its end.

And that's it for this post!

Lavori 07/30 progress report (knitting is finished!) plus a few other ramblings

I've been busy so not much has happened lately.

The biggest bit of progress was finishing the knitting of Lavori 07/30!!!!!  (yes, 5 exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind)   It wasn't as quick as I had predicted in my last post.  I made a knitting error in a difficult-to-fix area, several rounds before I noticed its existence.  I took the knitting back, stitch by stitch, until I felt comfortable about trying to fix it.  The fix isn't perfect but it'll be pretty unnoticeable.  But after that, I cruised to the end, all several thousand stitches left to knit.  Several days later, I had a few hours available, and was able to do the crochet cast off.  (hopefully without dropping any stitches, which would be a very unhappy blocking surprise)

I've hidden some of the ends and am not sure how many more I'll bother with.  While knitting, I ended one ball and started the next by tying simple overhand knots.  They're relatively unobtrusive unless I go looking for them.  Heck, I had trouble finding my final end which was poking out on the cast-off round.  There's so much thread and so much else going on that any one little thing is not usually all that noticeable.  Hopefully that's also true of the areas where I imperfectly fixed knitting mistakes!  I fixed a lot of my knitting mistakes perfectly so those definitely won't be visible after blocking.

I'm not sure when I'll have the time to get it blocked.  I'll need a few hours and a fairly large space, and maybe more pins.

I have no idea how much thread I used -- my estimate is in the 1500-2000 yard range, give or take a bit, but I'll need to weigh it to get a better estimate.  I did manage to finish without needing to use any full balls of thread.  That means that I have 1050 yards (3 full balls of 350 yds each) of this Clarks Big Ball #30 crochet cotton (plus a few small partial balls) to use for a future doily.

On the whole, this was a very straightforward knit except for the inaccuracies in the chart.  I'll probably repeat this and bloviate a bit longer about it all when I do the final report after blocking.

Here's a photo, unblocked, showing that I have indeed done the cast-off.

Other than that, I, umm, still haven't done much.  I was fairly motivated to finish the doily and barely touched my sweater.  I still haven't completely decided how to handle the back vs the front, but I want to start knitting on it again so that may well start up again soon.  I won't bother to share a photo since it looks like a generic blob of knitting, nothing too interesting.

The travel shawl is slowly growing.  I made a mistake somewhere in the most recent increase (to over 300 stitches per row), but it was easy to kludge something without knowing exactly where the mistake is.  I was off by a stitch when I started the next set of eyelets, a very quick fix.  Dunno if I have too many or too few stitches -- I'll figure it out later.  Again, it does not matter at all in the grand scheme of things.

I've started to think about future projects but haven't really decided on anything yet.  I don't want to think too hard about doilies until this one is really and truly done.  I should start more projects -- maybe a hat or some socks, fingerless mitts or full mittens, something like that.  And the spinning wheel plus my fiber stash are whispering.  But it's also a busy time of year and I don't always have space for works in progress unless they are small and easily stored away when necessary.

And that's really about it for knitting (and other suitable blog topics) this month.

A bit of spinning and the first progress report of the month

I had written that the Navajo-Churro/Icelandic roving that I bought at Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival a few weeks ago was calling to me.

So I spun it.

It's not the world's softest yarn, but that's OK!  I had some trouble spinning it -- a bit of VM in the roving, areas that were clumpy vs areas that drafted smoothly, and so on.  But even though I was pessimistic after spinning the singles, plying took care of the irregularities.  It looks and feels fairly even.  I have about 200 yards of 2-ply from about 4 ounces of fiber.

Here's a pic of the roving blob.

The color is a nice medium to dark brown, with some of the fibers being a bit lighter or darker brown.

I'm not sure what I'll spin next.  But hopefully something soon.

Here's the roll-call progress report on other projects, complete with pics for a few of them:

Lavori 07/30 doily -- I have decided how to approach the next few rounds and am making slow progress.  I got sidetracked by other things so haven't worked on this for a few days.  It's exciting to be so close to done but daunting that these last rounds still have a few tens of thousands of stitches left to do.

Miami Vice travel shawl -- I've finished the first set of eyelets and am about to increase stitches again.  The variegation isn't doing anything annoying, yay.  I don't know how far I am in the pattern or how much yarn I've used, but that's OK.  I like this pattern/yarn combo enough to keep knitting.  I'm not sure what I'll do when I reach the end -- add a sideways knit edging?  It'll depend a bit on how much yarn is left and how tired I am of the project by then.  There are hundreds of yards of yarn between now and then.

Appledore gansey -- I've done the underarm gussets and am ready to split the front and back.  I'm dithering about whether to do a shaped neckline in the front, short rows in the back, or both.

Charity ribbed hat -- making progress whenever I need some mindless knitting.  I don't have a pic of this to share.  It's pretty basic, just a k1p1 ribbed hat in a dark green worsted-weight Red Heart acrylic yarn.

Hmm, I don't have enough projects going.

That's about it for the knitting/spinning progress!  I've been doing other things so it's not like I'm only sitting around and twiddling my thumbs.  But they are things that I don't tend to write about in this blog.

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.

Proper Knitting Weather

Autumn is here, with cool, wet, blustery weather.  We even had a bit of a thunderstorm last night as the latest front arrived.

I haven't posted for a while.  However, I have been doing stuff!  So here's another boring progress report on my projects.

Appledore-ish Gansey

This is coming along.  My gauge seems to be holding steady at about 4 st/in.  I have a few more inches to go on the body before I start the underarm gusset.

Here is a bad photo (my specialty!).  The color is way off -- the yarn is a nice dark forest green.  This photo is from a few weeks ago, and I've knit several more inches since then.

I rather like this phase of a project -- lots and lots of fairly mindless knitting.  I can zone out and just go around and around, stopping whenever I need to.  Of course I have to pay attention at the seams, but that's why I have stitch markers.  It's great for travel knitting as well as for something to do while I am in a meeting or watching a video, etc.

Hobbit Shawl

This is the feather-and-fan comfort shawl that has been my travel knitting project for the past several weeks.  The name of the variegated yarn's colorway is "Middle Earth", so the shawl become the Hobbit Shawl now that it's done.

It'll grow a bit if/when I block it, but it's a perfectly reasonable shoulder shawl as is.  I'm wearing it now, in fact.  I used all but a few yards of my 4 50-gram skeins of this DK-weight yarn, between 450 and 500 yards of yarn.

Now I need a new travel project, since the sweater won't be a good travel project for much longer.

Good-bye to the Daisies Shawl project and maybe hello to a new shawl project

I started this a few years ago.  It's the Daisies shawl, from an old pattern from the Heirloom Knitting website (Sharon Miller's website).  It was fun enough, though there's some slight inconsistency in the charting as it goes from the initial set-up rows to the sets of repeating motifs.

But I hadn't touched it in a few years.

So...  It's gonna be unraveled and the yarn used for a new project.  There's another old pattern linked through Ravelry that might work well for this -- it looks like a half-pi (or 3/4-pi) with bands of offset eyelets (not quite a faggoting stitch since the wrong-side rows are purled) separated by thinner bands of a more solid pattern stitch.  The potential pattern is called Miami Vice, by Hilary Latimer (from threebagsfulled).  If that doesn't work, I guess I'll try something else, right?  I don't plan to reskein and wash/steam the yarn to remove the kinks from being part of a knit-up shawl for a few years.  Hopefully that won't be too much of an issue.  If I have enough yarn left when I get to the end of the pattern, I might add a sideways-knit edging.  Or I might not.  My guess is that I won't have enough yarn left anyway.

The yarn is from Crazy Monkey Creations, a nice gentle variegated pink sock-weight yarn (MonkeyToes, a 100% superwash merino 2-ply yarn, in a colorway Christy calls Girly Girl).  I have 2 100-gram skeins of it, close to 1000 yards.

I might try the Daisies project again in the future, possibly using a thicker yarn.  But it requires just enough concentration that it isn't a fabulous project for times that require mindless knitting projects.

Lavori 07/30 doily progress (charting!)

I think, fingers crossed, that I might finally have a workable chart for the hex mesh area.  I will double-check the stitch counts one more time and then maybe give it a try.

This means that any errata I list will be more for the outer-fans or leaf part of the doily -- the entire hex mesh area is borked anyway given the problems earlier in the pattern.  I may share my chart for my solution.  However, there are a LOT of potential solutions.  I don't know if mine is the best.  Heck, I don't even know for sure yet if it's 100% correct.  I may still go back to the approach of following the chart (with one extra hex mesh motif repeat) and ignoring the issues until they can no longer be ignored, which will be approximately where the leaf tips get incorporated into the hex mesh around round 183.

I tried to keep the outer stitches aimed in the correct direction, to mostly have double yarnovers between decreases where possible, and to incorporate the leaf tips reasonably gracefully into the hex mesh area.  I looked at previous areas in the chart where the hex mesh is next to the leaves and the leaf tips get incorporated to see examples of how Niebling approached the potential issues.

There are a few spots where my potential chart fix has 2 fewer stitches per hex mesh section than the original/wrong chart.  Hopefully that won't be a problem.  I don't foresee a problem with the rounds where I have 2-4 more stitches than the original/wrong chart.  But who knows?  That whole area is gonna be a bit funky anyway no matter what I do, given all the stacked increases happening in the outer fans area.

I'm resigned to maybe having to unravel a few gazillion-stitch rounds if it turns out to be necessary to adjust my chart in a way that can't be done on the fly.  I don't like using lifelines because they are too much of a pain to pick up the stitches from, in addition to the hassle of putting in the lifeline and having it not distort the stitches in a way that's noticeable during blocking.

The current photo shows the usual wad of thread, so I won't bother including it in this post.

I'm looking forward to making actual knitting progress again on this.  I'm on the last chart!  The last few dozen rounds!  So close to done.  Well, if you don't count the number of stitches left to do, which is still way in excess of 20,000 and maybe closer to 40,000.  I'm looking forward to finishing so I can start thinking about the next doily project(s).

Weaving

Nothing new here, but what the heck, here's a photo of the initial Tia rigid heddle project that I was writing about last month.

I haven't started another project yet.  I'm thinking about what I might want to try and what yarn I might want to use.  Houndstooth or log cabin?  Rig up some string heddles and do twill?  Just crank out some random strips of fabric and sew them together for a blanket/throw/bag?  Etc.  I don't particularly want napkins or towels or runners.  Scarves are not that useful, either.  Rigid heddle looms are not usually recommended for rugs, though maybe they'd be OK for rag rugs.  I don't want to make handwoven clothing.  I'm sure I'll get inspired at some point, and then warp up something and get going again.

Etc.

I think that's it, for the things I write about on this blog.

If I have a chance, I'll try to spin a bit this week.  Next weekend is Oregon Flock and Fiber, and I might be going there with friends.  I don't need anything.  But serendipity is a thing, and maybe something will come home with me anyway.  I want to support my friends who are selling there, after all, plus the festival has all kinds of interesting things that one doesn't always see for sale elsewhere.  I like being able to support local vendors, especially the ones raising fiber animals and/or making these wonderful products available to us.  However, I'd like to feel like I'm more or less doing steady-state with my spinning stash.  I gleefully restocked my dwindling fiber stash when everything opened up after COVID and I'm still slowly working through those purchases.

Google is offering me all kinds of AI-assisted beta features for this blog.  I don't want any.  I like having a dead-simple blog format and prefer to keep it that way.  If any AI-crud gets inserted anyway, I'll do my best to disable it.  If I can't, then my deepest apologies.  Alas, I've been here on blogger long enough that I don't necessarily wish to switch blogging platforms, but I will if I have to.  Well, as long as I can find something simple.  No bells or whistles for me, nor any AI-assisted anything.  AI is relatively useless for the kinds of things I do and I hate the effect it's had on me being able to find anything accurate and reputable for my own various internet searches.

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.

A second weaving post and other progress reports

Weaving on the Tia rigid heddle loom

I've slowly been weaving and have finally reached the end of my first warp on the Tia rigid heddle loom.

It's been sitting until I get ambitious/brave enough to finish the ends and cut it off the loom.  Knots?  Braids?  Twisted cord?  Hemstitching?  There are more options but I want to keep things relatively simple.

Then I can soak it and all that other post-finishing treatment and see what it really looks like.  It's possible that the red will bleed into the white, but I don't care if the white goes a little pinkish.

The above pic is a closeup of what the weaving looks like.  It's not too bad for a beginner.

The selvedges aren't too terrible, either.  I did a lot of experimenting as I wove -- how tight to pull the yarn, what angle to leave the weft at before beating, that kind of thing.  Once I get things figured out, it'll be more about practicing to build consistency.

It's relatively balanced, especially considering that the weft is thinner than the warp.  Where it's not balanced, it's slightly warp-faced.

I have no idea what I'll do with the piece of cloth.  Maybe a bag?

I also don't know what (or when!) my next weaving project will be.

Appledore-ish gansey project

I did a bit of swatching for the Appledore-inspired sweater I'd like to make, and then today I cast on!  I chose my fuzzy gray handspun yarn on 2.5 and 3mm needles, which seems to be knitting up at a fairly shocking 4 st/in because it gets splitty if I use finer needles.  Or maybe the fuzz makes the yarn want to knit up at that gauge.  Or it's this particular skein and other skeins are finer.

Anyway, it did not go well.

First, I miscounted the number of cast-on stitches and had to re-do part of the cast-on.

Then, I joined and wasn't sufficiently careful not to twist.  Yep, twisted.

So I went back a ways and then rejoined.

Twisted again!  Argh.

My third attempt succeeded in not being twisted.  But after a few rounds, I noticed a section of about 10-20 stitches where the rib was offset.  Although I can usually fix those pretty easily, there were a few rounds that would need to be fixed, with some risk of unraveling all the way down into the cast-on.  And I wasn't willing to live with it.

I give up.

I took it all out.  I will choose a different yarn and see if that works any better.  As before, the first step is to swatch.  I expect about 4 st/in for the batch of handspun I'm going to try next -- it's somewhere in the worsted-Aran-bulky continuum.

Feather and Fan Hobbit Shawl (aka F&F Travel Shawl)

I'm on the third (of 4) skeins of yarn, as of the middle of row 95.  This project may not last long enough to be a proper travel project!  That's OK -- it's still a nice shawl (though on the small side) and it gets 200g of yarn out of my stash.

The name of the colorway is Middle Earth, and thus I'm mentally calling this the Hobbit Shawl.

Lavori 07/30

I'm playing with charts to see what the problematic area of hex mesh will need to do in order to behave in a relatively orderly manner for the rest of the pattern.  The doily is sitting at round 164, as charted, while I figure things out.  I'll be fine for rounds 165, 167, and 169 if I follow the chart for the second rep of the hex mesh (i.e. mentally adding a hex mesh motif for the first part of the chart).

But then things get weird in round 173.  The hex mesh has to absorb the leaf tips while staying more or less in pattern.  Also, one side of the hex mesh in round 173 has a yarnover between the hex mesh and the next left, and the other doesn't.  One of those is wrong, independent of what I end up doing to accommodate the extra hex mesh motif.

I'm sure some people could fix this on the fly.  Not me, though.  And my confidence was shaken by my carelessness in my first attempt, where I overlooked a critical detail.  I'm charting more carefully now.  And hopefully I'll have the sense to test my fix before committing to the many many stitches per round of the actual doily.

I want to start knitting on it again, though!  I'm starting to get close to the end!  Well, at least in number of rounds left to go.

100 posts

Hmm, blogger says that this is post 101 for this blog.  At least one of them is a draft that never saw the light of day, so I guess this is really post 100, or if not, then close to it.  Yay, me!

I don't really have much to say about it.  This blog started as a way to write about doilies and share pics.  Then it morphed into a general knitting and spinning blog, though again kind of geared towards an audience.  I was a very minor player in the greater doily-knitting and lace-knitting blog ecosystem.

Then the blog went dead for a decade.

Now I'm back.  I'm posting again.  This is still a general knitting/spinning/yarn-fun blog, though I'm trying to make sure there is regular or at least semi-regular doily content.  I've been knitting doilies for all those years even if I wasn't blogging about them, after all!  But it's more of a journal for my own use rather than something aimed outwards.

I'm writing more about day-to-day progress.  More ruminations that are kind of clueless as I stumble along towards enlightenment.  More about plans and ideas and anything else that enters my mind.  I'm trying to include more pics even though I still suck as a photographer.

Any readers I once had are long gone, probably.  Blogs are a thing of the past, a very minor waypoint in the vast social media universe.  Even mailing lists, another formerly active environment for inspiring fiber-related content, are tiny compared to their former glories.  So maybe it is a good time to quietly creep back in, with no further ambition than having a place to write boring prose about knitting, spinning, dyeing, and now weaving, for as long as I feel the urge to do so.

We'll see if I make it to 200 posts and if I can do it without another decade-long hiatus.

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 are the next two chart errors.  I could have put them in my previous post but was hoping to wait until 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).

Round 163:  In the first set of leaves, the last leaf is missing a yarnover.  It should be (k4, yo, k-tbl, yo, k4) like all the other leaves.

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 for the next few rounds 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.

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!