Some sweater notes.

The first sweater spin is done – I opted to 4 ply my ’standard’ long draw single,  and have now have a nice 75 yard skein of a 4-5 wpi bulky yarn.   It’s a nice soft bouncy yarn, with a slightly barberpole look because of color variations in the singles.  Even woollen spun, the border leicester wool has a bit of sheen to it.

Once I had the yarn, I knit a couple of swatches – a gauge swatch on US 9 and 8 needles,  and a cable swatch.     I’m getting a consistent gauge on both needle sizes – 3.25 sts to the inch, and the fabric looks and feels the same.  It is soft and fairly thick,  but not stiff.      The cable swatch is pretty poor looking – woollen yarns don’t show stitch or cable definition well,  and this one is no exception.   Further,  I just don’t care for the look of the cables in such a large yarn.

In the end, this is a nice yarn, but I’m not sure it’s the sweater yarn I want – it’s a very bulky yarn, and I’m losing my cables with it. For the next spin I’ll try a three ply, which should give me something closer to what I want weight wise. I might just have to forgo cables for my sweater, since I know I want a woollen spun yarn for warmth. We’ll have to see how 3 ply swatches work up, and I need to make sure my cable swatch is longer next time – I’m not sure the cables were able to come out fully on the shorter swatch.       If the 3ply is still too bulky,  then I need to look at spinning finer singles.

Some recent yarn.

This is what I’ve been spinning recently.  The yarn weights are guess-timates based on how the yarn looks and feels,  since I’ve lost my WPI tool.  I won’t be knitting anything with this stuff until I find it again.

4.85 oz superwash wool, which I got at the fiber fest this past October.  Purchased as dyed drumcarded roving   Lovely autumnal colors,  and I am very happy with the how the striping worked.   I pulled the roving into short strips,  then organized them into three roughly equal bunches, and sorted the bunches by shade.   So, each length of singles had approximately the same colors in the same order when I plied them.  The small skeins were navajo plied, for the same effect.   I like how it came out.   approx. 190 yards total, 3 ply, in three skeins.    There was a lot of waste with this fiber – it had a very felty feel to draft, and a lot of neps to take out.  dk to worsted.

4.3 oz blended BFL, Wensleydale and colonial.  Purchased as dyed combed top, from CopperPot Woolies.   Beautiful blue purples,  which I kept together for a lovely blue-purple blended two ply.  I tried to spin this tight and thin,  for sock yarn.   approx. 230 yards.  Fingering to dk weight.

200 yards of cormo x dorset romney wool.  Purchased as 8 oz of unwashed fleece.   Two skeins, 3ply.   Heavy worsted.

I want a sweater.

I’ve wanted a good cardigan sweater for years. I’ve scoured thrift shops and knitting catalogs, I’ve read dozens upon dozens of knitting books and sweater patterns, all in search of the perfect cardigan. It has to be cozy enough to serve as a light jacket for early morning walks or autumn get-togethers, and it has to have pockets. It has buttons, not a zipper.

I still haven’t found my perfect pattern – I may have to make something up, which I find myself startlingly confident in my ability to do.

But I do have a start on the yarn. I’m aiming for a worsted/heavy worsted three ply, something between 8 and 11 WPI. I got real handcards for my birthday (!) , so I’m able to make nice sizable rolags now and  spin a true woolen yarn, so that’s what I’m doing. I’m using my plain dark Spinsanity spindle – it’s 1.2 oz, and spins like a dream.

I’m figuring I’ll need about 2-3k yards of yarn for my sweater,  so I bought and washed a 5.5  lb border leicester fleece from a local shepherd.  The results so far?

Here’s the washed wool, and my hand cards — see those dog combs? I was doing all my fiber prep with those, until my birthday. I also picked up a couple of nice fabric lined wicker bins, to replace the plastic bag/plastic bin combo I had going. Plastic storage is safe for the raw fleece, but not very aesthetic for my living room.

And here’s the bin of rolags – I card rolags until the bin is full, and then start spinning. I’ll repeat until I’m out of fleece. This is what’s left of the first bin full.

And these are singles I’ve spun so far from the first binful of rolags. I’ve got two bobbins of singles ready to ply, and the third is on the spindle. That little kate is also from Spinsanity, and is the coolest gizmo ever – I love it.

Rough Draft.

Today I taught the little boy
who does not stay
home for the weekends, how to spin.
A chopstick, a compact disc, a brass hook that is all wrong.

The roving is chocolate brown, dorset x romney
2 ounces, meant to be something soft and warm for my winter hands.
He wears it like a boa, calls it a scarf, unspins his leader over and over and over
the yarn breaks the spindle falls the brown wool
lumps twists
tangles

And I fix it once
twice
five times before his father is calling him home.

To watch him go so carefully with his wool and his cd spindle
I am happy
he is no longer chasing the girls with a stick.

The monster in the living room.

It’s a 5.5 lb border leicester fleece from a shepherd in my area. It smells very barny, and is sticky and stiff and full of VM (vegetable matter, both pre and post digestion). I love the grey brown colours and how soft and wavy it is.

This is the washed up version. I like the color variation a lot – the different staple lengths, not so much:

And here is a bit carded into lovely soft fluffy rolags. I am carding with dog combs right now, which is working, but I am hoping that the upcoming fiber fest trip will result in a card upgrade for me.

And a teeny tiny swatch – two rolags spun up (woolen), andean plied, and knitted into a little 2 inch square. It’s nice and soft, but too lacy on US 8 needles. I think I’ll make a three or four ply yarn in the end. Right now I’m still washing the stuff.

My spinning rack.

Lacking anything more interesting to blog about today, I share with you my spinning rack. This is a large upright embroidery frame that was a gift from my grandmother (back when I was seriously into embroidery – it came complete with unfinished crewel-work), which I have repurposed for my spinning stuff.

The adjustment holes on the bottom are perfect for most of my spindles – my octagonal Louet doesn’t fit, and I keep meaning to some wire loops or hooks to the bottom of one of the end bars, so my spindles can hang on either side. Pre-drafted ready to spin fiber hangs easily over the round split bars, where it can be spun from without being stepped on, and stored between spins without un-fluffing itself. That big mass of fluff on the right is about .5 oz of 100% mohair, just pre-drafted for my evening spinning session. The denser purple/grey stuff is a merino/silk roving from our spinning class at the Fiber Expo last year – it’s being slowly slowly spun into a lace weight. Very slippery stuff, challenging to spin. The card board roll on the back bar is for storing singles, and if I add another one (or more) I can ply from them as well.

All in all, a nifty little set up, and very portable – I can move it around the room to use, or get out of the way, and it doesn’t cause any trouble.

Tuesdays are for spinning.

And in this case, blogging about the past week’s spinning as well. No, this is not an original idea. I stole it from some random knit-blogger.

I finished a little skein of Jacob – 1 oz.

I finished a little skein of Cormo – .5oz

I finished a little skein of Romney – 1 oz.

All together, they are fated to be a little tiny sweater for a certain stuffed animal in my child’s life, who, I am regularly informed “..is very very sad because he doesn’t have his own woolies, Mommy.”

And I am still working on the laceweight. The end is in sight though – I have less then half an ounce of the roving left. I’m still working on getting my mojo back though, so I can’t spin this stuff for very long – it’s so slick I keep dropping the spindle if I go too long.

In which Anna goes shopping, and knits.

I got to go to the yarn shop today!

I got a lovely bundle of Romney roving – 6 oz. I love the color on this. Also some more wool wash.

A copy of the current Vogue Knitting, and a book I’ve been wanting for a while – Montse Stanley’s Knitter’s Handbook.

And I’ve been working on Kelly’s wedding shawl, my Ravelympics project. I’ve completed the first 19 rows, and all the single bead rows. Next up – triple bead rows. I have 276 stitches on the needles, up from 60 cast on, and 36/504 pearls.

Here and Now.

Spinning. I’ve got a 1oz skein of Romnery drying on the back of a chair, and a .5 oz bundle of Cormo roving being spun up. I haven’t spun in months, and I need to get my mojo back before I can finish the silk/merino lace weight I started.

Knitting. Socks. A pair for myself, and pair for the Bee, and a pair for dasHusband on the needles. Also on the needles – an alpaca afghan and a lace shawl from Victorian Lace Today. The shawl is technically not ‘on’ the needles yet – I just finished swatching for it, and need to cast on by the end of this month.

Writing. Very little. A few poems have wandered onto paper, and I keep having story filled dreams and not writing them down.

The matter of the camera – it’s been found, and it even has batteries. I’ll take pictures of the hiatus knitting tomorrow (probably), and have them up by the end of the week. In the mean time, here is a gratuitous cabbage. We’re a member of the High Mill Park Farm CSA program this year, and this is from our weekly basket.

One the Spindle right now.

I am spinning laceweight right now – this is some unidentified fiber that I got in the goodie bag at the spinning class I took last year.   I estimate I have about two ounces of it. It is a very fine soft stuff, and spins very easily – I believe the mix has silk in it, but I really don’t remember.

This is on my .8 oz SpinSanity – I love this little spindle. I have a larger SpinSanity too, with a spiral pattern on it. Very nice stuff.