follow through

Thank you so much to everyone who bought one of my patterns in the past few weeks. Yesterday I sent $751, directly from those pattern sales, to Doctors Without Borders. I am continuing to donate through the month of February, as are many of the designers on Ravelry who started donating money from their January pattern sales. See my previous post for more details on how you can find these patterns.

And to follow up on stuff from a couple of posts ago, I have been doing a lot of knitting from handspun. I finished a couple of plain ribbed socks from handspun from two of my favorite fiber dyers. First up are the merino/silk socks, from fiber dyed by All Spun Up:









These are from fiber dyed by Hello Yarn. While I did a regular 3 ply for the above socks, these socks below were chain plied, with a regular 3 ply used for the heels, for added strength. They're superfine merino, and so soft.









I also finally finished the Cluaranach stole, designed by Anne Hanson. Anne is one of my favorite designers. Her lace is always interesting, and her other garments are always full of texture, and interesting to knit as well as to wear. She's really tops in my book, and lately I find myself knitting more and more of her designs. When I have some nice yarn without a pattern to go with it, her designs are among the first I look through for ideas. (I embarrass myself by gushing, but I really mean it.)



This is also a handspun yarn, from Red Stone Yarns batts. It's woolen spun, which means that it's a bit fuzzy and lofty, which is perfect for this stole. Unfortunately, that gave me problems when I was finishing the project. The stole is knit in two identical parts, and is supposed to be grafted seamlessly in the center. My yarn was too fuzzy to make that work well (it's really hard to graft with fuzzy, delicate yarn), so I ended up doing a three needle bindoff. It's not the perfect solution, but doesn't look bad at all. It's the kind of thing that a knitter would notice, but that looks so neat that nobody else would think twice about it, so I'm satisfied with the fix. And in the future, I'll remember to use a smoother and sturdier yarn in patterns that will require large scale grafting!


And, of course, how could I resist the call of the cormo?



This is the Celtic Icon pattern, from Inspired Cable Knits. It's a sportweight cardigan, and just right for this handspun fleece-to-sweater project. The photo above is from the back of the sweater, and I've actually finished the back, the center panel of the hood, and half of the right front of the sweater since I took that photo. And now that I'm approaching the midway point of that big knitting project, I have been taking a little side trip with some pretty yarn and yet another Anne Hanson pattern. (A pair of socks, this time.)


I have some handspun that is ready to share, but I'll save it for next time, along with another handspun scarf that just needs to be washed and blocked before it's ready for its photos.


Based on comments and emails, many of the people who read my blog are spinners, or are people who hope to start spinning one day. There are a lot of things to learn about spinning, and one reason I enjoy it is that it's such a rich craft, full of opportunity to learn and improve. But one of the best pieces of advice I can give to a spinner or aspiring spinner is to knit with your handspun. (See, that follow through post title does mean something!) Knitting with your handspun is a really good way to become a better spinner, because you can't improve unless you know how you want to improve. Knitting with the stuff will tell you so much more about it than just looking at it and measuring it in various ways. Plus, it's lots of fun, and extremely gratifying.

If you're looking for inspiration, or just for a good way to pass the time, I will share my two favorite searches on Ravelry: handspun sweater projects and handspun sock projects. All good, all the time.

tugging at my heartstrings

A year or two ago I got back in touch with an old childhood friend. A few weeks ago I learned that she was in the hospital, because her immune system decided to munch on her heart, and she needed a new one. (There is a more technical term for the auto immune disease that munched on her heart. I don't remember what it is, except that it's rare and very scary.)

After obsessively following her online updates and wringing my hands with worry, I realized that I could direct that nervous energy to something productive. Silly, yes, but also productive. If she needed a new heart, why not just make one? So obvious.



Thank you, Kristin Ledgett, for this beautiful and simple pattern. I made mine larger than life using an aran weight yarn (Harrisville Highland) and size 4 needles. And I stuffed it with leftovers from combing my blue cormo, figuring that that could just be blood that needs to be oxygenated, right?

Joclyn received her new heart yesterday. Not the wool one (though that should also have landed in Brooklyn by now), but the real beating kind. And is doing great. She is a superstar. (As is the person who signed their donor card, and made her continued life possible. Please, if you can, make sure that you are signed up to be an organ donor.)



And for a study of contrasts, I wanted to help spread the word that a lot of knitting designers are pledging to donate a portion of their pattern sales for the next little while to charities that can help out in Haiti. The full list can be found here, on Ravelry.

From today through the end of February of this year, I am donating all of my pattern sales (minus the paypal fees) to Doctors Without Borders. I'll probably donate in a couple of batches, and will post the totals on the pattern descriptions in Ravelry when all is said and done. Specifically, those patterns of mine are the Francie socks, the 1989 hat, and the Smoke Signals hat.

In addition, because I like to see people actually use my patterns, I will donate $1 for every person who sends me a private message on Ravelry to let me know they've completed knitting one of the patterns, between today and the end of February.

There are tons of other designers who are donating part or all of their pattern sales to charities over the next few weeks, so please check them out. If there's a pattern you've been thinking of buying, now is a great time to do it.

Hug your loved ones. Life is precious.

This is not a resolution!

... though it does seem like a good way to start the new year. Happy New Blog Post! I thought I'd do a quick roundup of some of the things I've done over the past few months. I know that the blogs I read haven't been as active, on the whole, as they used to be. For everyone celebrating the newly minted year with a long, lazy weekend, the least I can do is try to provide 3.5 minutes of passive fibery entertainment. Here's some pretty:



This is a 3 ply fingering weight, spun from 80/20 merino/silk, dyed by All Spun Up. It's my first of her fibers, and was one of my favorite sock yarn spinning experiences. This particular blend makes a soft yarn that still has a lot of elasticity, with an added bit of sheen. The darker colors with the occasional brightness and shine was mesmerizing to spin, and has been spectacular to knit up. The sock are actually all but done. Maybe they'll be in the next post. In any case, I highly recommend this blend for spinning.




These are two slightly different skeins of handspun, made from superfine merino, dyed by the brilliant Adrian at Hello Yarn. This yarn is chain plied, to preserve the color runs. I meant it for socks, and was going to make knee socks, but one skein is thicker. So now I'm just knitting regular socks, and sending one skein to a friend. (Long over-due, alas.) The fineness of the super-fine was slightly noticeable in the fiber, more noticeable in the yarn, and is extremely noticeable in the knitted fabric. Because chain plied yarn isn't ideal for socks, I pulled out some chunks of the fiber, and spun and plied it into a regular 3 ply yarn, for something a little more resistant to wear and tear. The first of these socks is halfway done, and the pair would probably be done by now if I didn't have another time-sensitive project on the needles. It's a joy to knit with this stuff.



These socks are from Anne Hanson's Brickers sock pattern, knit out of Dream In Color Smooshy. It's a simple but gorgeous stitch pattern, and elastic enough to be ideal for socks. I love what Anne does with textures, and want to knit just about everything she's designed.




This is a 3 ply handspun out of superwash Bluefaced Leicester fiber, dyed again by Adrian at Hello Yarn. This was my first experience with superwash BFL, and it was weird. It's extremely slippery to spin, but also starts to feel wiry when it gets a lot of twist in it. So I felt like it took a while to get the right balance on my spinning wheel, so that it wasn't yanked out of my hands, but so that it also didn't feel icky as I spun it. I eventually reached that balance, and found that when I plied the wiry feeling singles, they softened right up. I do think I'd use superwash BFL again, now that I know what to expect from it. But most of all, I adore this yarn. Thank you for dyeing so beautifully, Adrian! I'm really itching to start these socks.





I spun this singles laceweight yarn from BFL top, and ended up with this scarf (Rivolo, designed by Anne Hanson):



This was the first time I've been happy with my own handspun singles yarn. I think that part of that is experience, but part of it may also be the longer staple length of BFL, which means less twist is necessary to keep the yarn together than with a short stapled fiber, like merino. I'm pretty proud that I did this, given my previous bad experiences with handspun singles.



That Rivolo was my second lace scarf from a singles yarn of the year. Right before that, I knit this Road Not Taken scarf, from Lisa Lloyd's book A Fine Fleece. I used Zauberball yarn. I really wanted to use the yarn for socks, but wasn't convinced that a singles yarn would be ideal for that. I'm happy with the project I chose for it, and adore the colors. It goes well with my Manon sweater, since there's an orange in there that perfectly matches it.


Believe it or not, there's more than that. But I kind of lost track of what I had blogged about, and what I hadn't. So here's to a fresh start to the year, with less blogging debt. I'm not all caught up, but caught up enough to move on, and not worry about it anymore. I've spent the last month or so spinning up my blue cormo fleece, and working on a pattern for publication in the spring. The fleece is done, and the pattern should be within the next week. This is going to be a great year, wool-wise, and otherwise.

burritos

I've been working on a lot of things between when I finished Manon (what I posted about last time) and now, but am going to skip ahead a bit and talk about my next fleece-to-sweater project.

I honestly don't remember if I blogged about it at all, but this summer I bought a beautiful cormo fleece. I believe that cormo sheep are a cross between corriedale and merino, and they tend to have very fine, crimpy fleeces with good lock structure, and nice staple length for such fine fleeces. I knew that processing this fleece would be a lot like the experience of processing the corriedale fleece that turned into the Manon sweater, and was able to put to use a lot of what I learned last year.


Kade's fleece (Kade is the name of the sheep), with Alex for size comparison. In fact, this is only half the fleece. The other half lives with Molly Ooh, I lied! I think this is the whole fleece, before I divided it. Whoops!.


A couple of locks, close up.

As with the corriedale, I carefully separated the locks of Kade's fleece, and washed it in mesh laundry bags, using tulle to separate out the layers. Very hot water, blue Dawn dishwashing soap, 2 washes, 2 rinses.

My big mistake was that I didn't think ahead to the dyeing. I knew I wanted to dye this fleece on my own, before spinning it. The earlier in the process you dye the wool, the more uniform your finished project will be. I didn't think about it more than that, until the time came to take my beautiful bag full of clean, white locks, and figure out how to make them blue. I almost didn't dye them. They were so precious as-is.





What would have been really smart of me would have been to dye them right after I washed them. Before taking them out of the mesh bags, before letting them dry, just plunking them in a dyepot. It would have been so much easier that way! Someone on Ravelry suggested this to me, but it was too late. Next time, people. NEXT TIME!

But my lack of foresight wasn't a complete loss. I did figure out a new way to keep my locks neat and organized for the dyeing, which I might use for both the scouring and dyeing, next time I have a raw fleece. I actually borrowed the idea from another person (whose identity I don't remember), who I remember posting about using rolls of tulle to secure her locks when she washes them. I ended up with this:



I bought lots and lots more tulle (it's cheap, and always seems to be on sale), and cut it into manageable lengths. It comes folded, and I took advantage of that by laying out the locks on one side, and just folding the other half over it, where it naturally creased. Then I rolled it up, and used sewing thread to baste it shut. This held surprisingly well, though a few locks did escape during the dyeing process. I think that next time I'll just be careful to not lay them down so close to the edge of the tulle. Or, really, not bother to care. There was no significant lock leakage, and I was able to save everything, anyway.

To dye them, I mixed up a dye solution, and figured out how much of it I should add to each dye pot so as to use all of it, somewhat uniformly. (Don't ask me for dyeing advice. I cobbled together bits of knowledge here and there, but mostly winged it and crossed my fingers. I totally dye by the seat of my pants.)

I ended up with a whole bunch of squishy blue cormo burritos.


Both after scouring and dyeing, I find that it's hard to get enough water out of the fiber when it's still all wrapped up. It's a lot easier to handle if I let it sit for a day or so before taking it out of its wrapper, to finish drying.

I wasn't all that concerned that the fiber be evenly dyed. I wanted to try to get an even amount of dye and fiber in each pot, so I didn't let things get too wonky. But I didn't obsess over whether each bit of fiber was fully soaked, or with moving things around in the pots. I just let them be, because I knew that combing the fiber would even things out a lot. And I also don't want my yarn to be too uniform. I want it mostly uniform, so I'm free to knit something with a lot of texture, if I so choose. But a little variation can look very pretty.





I thought I finished combing all the wool I'd need this morning, but I may have miscalculated a bit. In any case, I've started spinning, and will go back and comb a bit more to add to some bobbins that aren't as full as I'd like. Later. That was a lot of combing.


That's just some of it.

I don't have any major knitting projects on the needles right now, as I'm waiting for yarn for a super exciting project that I won't be able to blog about for many months. (I will let your imaginations wander about that one!) So while I'm waiting for that yarn to arrive, to be followed by some marathon knitting, I am spinning a lot. This cormo is incredibly soft, and I will most certainly be buying more cormo fleeces in the future. I would like to make it an annual tradition.

For a last treat, here's a photo of some more dyeing. These are locks that I didn't carefully separate out, and separate between layers of tulle. It was the lower quality (but still really nice!) and dirtier stuff from around the edge of the fleece. I just threw it in a bag, and hoped for the best. I will probably hand or drum card it, for a soft, lofty yarn.

The best thing I've ever made?

(At least so far.)

Here's a reminder of how I started:



Greasy corriedale locks, scoured to a creamy white. Creamy white locks hand combed into fluffballs of top. Top spun into 7 bobbins of singles, then plied into several skeins of a 3 ply aran weight yarn. Aran weight yarn sent to Amy for dyeing.

Here's where it got me:



Manon, designed by Norah Gaughan, knit from a sheep. Whee!

I knit the 38" size at a slightly tighter gauge, for a 34" - 35" sweater, and of course lengthened the sleeves. Here are some more views:



All that work, and I'm not sure that there's much more to say. It was fun and interesting to knit, and is a pleasure to wear. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. In fact, I am kind of doing it again. This time it's a cormo fleece, dyed by me in lock formation, to become some other sweater. Perhaps in several months it will become my new best thing I've ever made.

people make me happy

I have so much to share on the blog, and this post will be dedicated to other people making me very happy. It's a bit of a loosey-goosey theme, but it's a theme nonetheless.

I have to start off with what might be my favorite finished knitting project from this past summer. A long time ago I sent a skein of handspun to Sasha. I spun the yarn from a pile of rainbow colored merino top, and it was spectacular and bright, but not quite what I had imagined in my head. I wasn't sure that I could do it justice, but knew that it would be perfect for Sasha, who is a bright, rainbow-y person. Here are some photos of the magic she worked, posted with her permission:





You can see more photos and information on Sasha's project page for the scarf, or on her blog, linked above.



Another person who made me happy this summer is David, from Red Maple Sportswear, who emailed me to ask permission to display my Francie sock as a sample at his booth at Rhinebeck. I was touched that he thought to ask permission (of course it's okay!), and agreed that I'd let people know about his Rhinebeck booth in exchange. I've never used his products, and won't be at Rhinebeck, myself, but he sounds like a great guy, and I wish I could visit the booth. So if you're going to be there, stop by his booth and say hi, if you think of it. (Please note that I'm not posting this as a paid advertisement, or anything. Simply a fun exchange between a couple of fibery people.)



To complete the theme of other people making me happy, I have my Party Like It's 1999 socks:





I start knitting these socks in June, at the airport on my way to my 10 year college reunion. It was a last minute decision to attend, thanks to the encouragement and help of my friends, and I had an amazing time. Some people think of their high school years as the best time of their youth (or maybe that's only in cheesy movies?), but for me it was college. It was a wonderful weekend with old friends, old places, old smells, and lots of laughs and hugs. I'm so glad I went, and these socks (knit out of Socks That Rock lightweight, in the Never On Sunday colorway) will always remind me of that weekend.

Thank you, Dr. Zizmor!

I have had so many wonderful things filling my life lately that it's hard to pick and choose what to write about. They all try to get through the doorway at once, and get stuck. I suppose there are worse things that can happen than a paralyzing overabundance of choices.

One of those things was a 2 week trip out West. We went to Wyoming and Montana, visiting Grand Teton National Park, Yellowstone National Park, and Glacier National Park. It was an amazing trip full of staggering beauty, and I will post a link to the full set of photos once they're all up and organized on Flickr. Here's a teaser:



Too bad I'm writing this post before I've uploaded the SHEEP photos! Well, that will get you to read my next post, eh?



Another thing that's been taking up a lot of my time is the cello. A few months ago I decided to start playing the cello again, which for me was basically starting from square 1. It's an incredible challenge, and very rewarding, and I plan a more thorough blog post about it at some point. (One of those things jamming the doorway, I tell ya!)

There are times when I feel that I'm in over my head with good stuff, and there are times when I question why I try to do all of these things when I could probably be satisfied with fewer projects. Usually I suppress this question to the dark recesses of my mind when it pops up, treating it like an annoyance. Kind of like those people who tell you you can just buy a package of tube socks for $5 at Wal-Mart. There is a reason why I do all these things (and goodness knows there are people who do a lot more than I do!), but sometimes it's not so easy to articulate.

The other day I got some insight into how to frame an answer. Stick with me, here, because the path my mind takes isn't always straightforward. I saw a sign for some business that seemingly randomly brought back memories of Dr. Zizmor. Any of you who have spent time watching commercials or riding the subway in NYC in the past 20 years or so probably know who this guy is. For those of you who don't, you can click on that link (and watch that classic commercial!) if you want. In short, he's a NYC dermatologist who had (has?) cheesy but catchy TV ads, and print ads that are frequently found in subway cars. I grew up in Brooklyn and took the subway to/from school every day in high school. I'm sure I've seen his subway ads thousands of times.

Here's where the ride though my mind gets a little twisty-turny. When I saw that sign that reminded me of Dr. Zizmor, I thought that I should google him, to see if there is any NYC nostalgia online about those old dermatology subway ads. Then I thought about how when I was growing up, there was no such thing as google. The internet was in its infancy (at least for the general public), and I didn't have access to it at all before college. Back when I was in high school one of the other things you would occasionally see among the ads in the subway was something called Poetry In Motion. These were short poems interspersed among the ads, and I loved them. My absolute favorite Poetry In Motion poem was Blackberry Eating. (In fact, it's still one of my favorite poems.) I remember that one day I decided that I just needed to have that poem for myself, and searching for it ride after ride after ride, until I finally saw it and was able to scribble it down.

And here's the thing. In 1994, waiting and hoping was my only option. It took work to find information. Nowadays, I'm sure that a simple google search would get me that information in seconds. (In fact, it's among the first page of hits if you just google "blackberry poem" without the quotation marks.) While I greatly appreciate how accessible information is thanks to the internet, I do have a lot of nostalgia for the days in which it wasn't so easy to find what you were looking for. I think that having to work for it, and having to exercise patience as well as vigilance, made the information all that much sweeter when you finally got your hands on it. There is something special about a Galway Kinnell poem hurriedly scribbled in my own writing notebook, next to my own poetry, that is more satisfying and pleasureful to read than typed words on a screen found in mere seconds through a Google search.

And here we are, getting very close to my point. (I know, can you imagine! Yes, there is a point.) While I celebrate the openness of information that comes with internet access on a daily basis, and recognize its grand benefits for education and quality of life, I think that it has affected many or most of us. I have a theory. (No, not bunnies.) My theory is that the reason we see this "trend" (I hate that word, but there it is) in hand crafts is that we crave a type of information that can't just be googled. I feel that with the internet, if you want to know about something you can know about something. Information flows so freely that it doesn't always feel as special as it once did. There is no challenge. And I think that pushes many of us to find a challenge; To find chase a kind of information or knowledge that can't just be googled. Why am I playing the cello? Why is there a raw fleece on my porch? Why do I have 2 dozen (at least) pairs of hand knit socks? Because these things are concrete. These things don't exist unless I put in time and effort. These things come from and provide experiences that I can't get just from staring at a computer screen.

I know this isn't true for everybody, but I suspect it's at least somewhat true for the people who choose to read about me on a computer screen. Our lives have become virtual in so many ways, and connecting with people and information as become so effortless, that we need more concrete things in our lives. So the next time someone asks me why I bother, I think my answer will be "because it's real."

And yes, I think this is also why Alex and I choose to spend our vacation time climbing mountains and seeing the country for ourselves. Photos in National Geographic are great, but feeling the ground under our feet is better.


Oh yeah. You came here to see stuff I made? I know my last post was about socks, but I'm going to share more. I have been knitting a lot of socks recently, in part because they are a good side project while I'm designing other things and working on bigger but slower projects. There will be bigger and different things eventually, I promise.


Kai Mei socks, designed by Cookie A, in sock yarn from Julie Spins. Bonus cormo fleece in the background!


Papaver Sok, designed by Anne Hanson, in Araucania Ranco Solid sock yarn.


Retro Rib socks, designed by Evelyn Clark, in handspun BFL.

The yarn I spun for these retro ribs was dyed by David of Southern Cross Fibre. The colorway is called vigilance, and I decided to split it up before spinning it for these fraternal socks.


With cello music in the background! I am happy to say that I'm well beyond those pages, and it's nice to see visual confirmation of my progress.

That's enough for now, I think. Off to do some swatching and vacation photo uploading!

Ketchup!

Aren't they just beauteous! It's the Fancy Silk Sock pattern from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks, knit in Araucania Ranco Solid. It's a perfect match of yarn and pattern. The yarn did give me some trouble when I was winding it, as did the other color that I also bought. I know it wasn't me, so either it was a weird batch, or they just do something really weird when winding their hanks which makes it hard to not get in a knotted mess when you ball it up. But I'm glad I persevered, because the yarn was worth it in the end. So let this be a warning -- the yarn is worth trying, but don't try to wind it when your patience or time is short.


And speaking of yarn that has its issues, how about a yarn with genuine issues, not just superficial winding issues? These socks were knit out of some of my earliest handspun. I have learned a lot since spinning that yarn, and one of the things I've learned is that sometimes there really can be too much of a good thing. The "good thing" in this case was twist. The yarn was spun and plied so tightly that it was very difficult to work with. It was simultaneously too ropey and too springy, coiling back on itself every chance it had. I was concerned that the socks would be garbage, but they actually turned out pretty nicely. At the very least, they should last longer than the cockroaches. (Wait, cockroaches will survive a nuclear Armageddon, but now we're all doing to die from Swine Flue or food shortages caused by global warming, right? Do cockroaches survive those things? Hmm.)



For all my complaining about my handspun, I like the socks, and I sent them to my mom. The yarn, by the way, is superwash merino. Indestructible, solid superwash merino, perhaps as dense as the center of a planetary body.


The antithesis of the superwash that is trying to pose as the black hole at the center of the Milky Way is polwarth. Polwarth is a soft and incredibly springy wool, mostly found (if I am correct) in Australia and New Zealand. David, over at Southern Cross Fibre, sells a lot of Polwarth, all dyed in the most perfect Australia-themed colorways. I think this colorway is called Uluru.





It ended up as a sportweight yarn, even though I was aiming for fingering. It's one of those fibers that poofs up to something larger, no matter how thin you think you're spinning it. I'm not complaining, because the resulting yarn is incredibly soft and lofty, and the yardage I got from this skein, which was spun worsted style (short forward draw) was akin to what I'd get spinning woolen longdraw. Here are the socks I made from it, for Alex:







While I play blogger-catchup, I realize that I may not write about all the details I'd usually include. Stuff like wraps per inch, and exact yardage and weight for handspun, might get left out. But I have been pretty good about logging all that information in Ravelry, so if you're ever curious about the exact details of a yarn or knitting project, please check over there. My handspun can be found here and my knitting projects can be found here. I in no means plan to have Ravelry replace the blog, but I just want to let the geeks who want to know all the details have access to them, in case I leave things out on the blog. (Which I know I've done in this post.)

I have so much to post about. I made a list, with enough content for 5 meaty posts, including this one. Next up (I think): a couple of handspun scarves, spinning for lace, and a hat pattern preview.

A Corrie-Tale

My silence has been mighty, and for that I apologize. I have no excuse, other than the "perfect" blog post that I've been writing in my head for 2 months, but which hasn't seen a pen or paper or keyboard. So I will temporarily give up that ghost, and focus on other non-ghostly white fluffy things.

What I most want to share with you is my biggest spinning project to date, that I haven't posted about since it was in its beginning stages. The spinning is long done, and it deserves a blog post of its own.

Several months ago, I bought a few pounds of a wonderful corriedale fleece. I scoured it, combed it, and spun it up into a sweater's worth of yarn. I know I posted some photos of the early parts of this project, and here is a short photo essay of some other parts of the process, starting with beautiful clean locks, and ending with a mighty pile of handspun yarn.



The last of the locks, ready for combing. This was a somewhat nostalgic photo for me, as it took so long to comb all of the wool. I enjoyed the process, and was a little sad to see the end of it.



A photo of my combing workspace, looking neater than it usually does. You can see my combs (Alvin Ramer Super Mini Combs) clamped to the table on the left, a small basket of combed top on the right, and a lineup of full bobbins of singles in the back.



These are locks, being prepared for combing. This is about how much I would put on my combs at once. I used the yellow camping towel (very absorbent) because I sprayed the locks with water (and a bit of wool wash with tea tree oil), to help prevent static electricity while combing.



Locks lashed onto the comb, ready for combing.



Locks after 3 passes of combing, ready to be pulled off the combs into top.



Using a diz to pull top off the comb.



The leftovers -- short bits that weren't long enough to come off the comb as part of the top. I erred on the side of leaving more behind, for a higher quality yarn with fewer nepps and short fibers.



Hand combed top is a lot airier and more delicate than commercially prepped top. It's a pleasure to spin.



It may be impossible to have too many photos of this stuff!



I kept my bobbins organized in chronological order, so I could mix them up in an organized fashion when I plied the yarn.



The (almost) final product. Six big skeins of 3 ply corriedale, worsted to aran weight. I am sending it off this weekend to be dyed, because I don't trust myself to dye this much yarn all in the same shade. (I just don't have a dye pot big enough!) What color will it be? Hmm, perhaps I'll keep that a surprise. But I have a little sample skein, and it's going to be awesome. More on that when it's done!


I am in love with the process of going from raw fleece to beautiful fluffy handspun in a quantity large enough for a sweater. So in love with that process, in fact, that I feel pretty dedicated to doing it a lot more in the future. I have already acquired two more fleeces -- a romney lamb's fleece in variegated colors, that I've almost finished scouring, and a CVM fleece in a brownish grey that will be up next for scouring. I'm hoping to acquire more raw wool at New Hampshire Sheep and Wool next month, and/or by ordering online from trusted farms. I don't plan to give up completely on commercially prepped stuff dyed in gorgeous colors by talented fiber artists, but I do plan to cut back. This Spring's fleece acquisitions are meant to sustain me for much of the next year, primarily for sweater knitting, but perhaps also for smaller projects. I've always admired gardeners who have the patience to plan for months and years ahead. I don't know if I'll ever be a great gardener, but harvesting these Spring fleeces feels much the same.

More soon, my friends. I promise.

If you're cold, put on a hat!

(Not to contradict Brenda's wise tag line. I've just been a bit hat crazy lately.)

I have a lot of catch-up to do. I'm ashamed of how long ago I finished some of the hats in this post, but let's just say that I've been doing a thorough test-drive of some of them before blogging. You know, just in case...

I'll start out with the hats knit from yarn I bought, and then go on to hats knit from yarn I spun, along with information about the handspun. Thank the Fiber Goddess for Ravelry, which has become my supplemental fiber brain. At least I'm a bit better about putting information in there than I am about blogging in a timely matter, so that something is recorded somewhere when it's time to blog!







This is the Peek-a-Boo Cloche by Mona Schmidt, from the book Lace Style. The original pattern calls for a sportweight yarn (one of the Louet yarns, maybe?), but when I decided to knit this the colors of leftover Knitpicks Palette sitting in the drawer (from the Fair Isle with Vertical Stripes, from oh so long ago) were calling to me. Palette is a fingering weight, and not a very robust fingering weight at that, but I decided to give it a try. The lining of the hat is knit first, from the top down, so I figured that I'd know fairly quickly whether the yarn would work, and if I'd have to alter the pattern for a vastly different gauge. My head is on the small side, so I had a good feeling about the project, and it turned out that it worked just fine, without any size alterations. The hat is just the right size for my small head, but I wouldn't want the hat to be any smaller. (So copy me at your own risk!)






This is Habitat, by Jared Flood. (I always want to say that it was designed by Franklin Habit. Yes, I know all knitting men are not the same person.) I wish I had a better photo of it, but the light was just not cooperating that day, and I haven't had a chance to get a better shot. Which is a shame, because Alex wears it a lot. It was a birthday gift 2 months ago, and I'm delighted with how often he wears it, and how much he seems to like it.

The yarn is Harrisville Highland, leftover from Alex's Cobblestone sweater, which he also wears often enough to make me very happy. Maybe it's lucky yarn, or maybe I'm getting better at knitting things to match his size and taste. (I wear the Rhapsody in Brown sweater more often than he does. It's a bit tight on him, and I can't seem to get a more severe blocking to take. It's a little big on me, but in that just perfect way that makes it incredibly cozy.)



And now onto the handspun. This first hat was quite the bargain. I bought the fiber at New Hampshire Sheep & Wool last May, and only paid $8 for the 4 oz. I believe it's Ashland Bay top, but I didn't realize it at the time. It's not a bad thing, though I feel a bit silly in retrospect, buying such widely available commercially prepped top at a local fiber event. It's 100% merino, and I carded it into rolags before spinning. I found that the fiber was a bit flat at first, and a couple of people suggested that I steam it, to put some life back into it, and re-awaken its merino crimp. That did help, and I was delighted with the soft, fluffy, and lofty yarn that resulted.



As you can see, and as I think I mentioned in a previous post with yarn spun in a similar way (commercial top carded into rolags), you don't get a perfectly even yarn when you spin longdraw. Especially when it's from rolags, where the fibers are all jumbled together in a chaotic swirl. But I'm learning that knitted fabric can be very forgiving, and that most of the unevenness in yarns like this disappear when you knit them up. It's kind of magical, and only encourages me to spin longdraw more often. I hope seeing hats made from uneven woolen spun yarn gives some of you confidence to try it out, too.

The yarn is a 3 ply DK weight, 13 WPI, 105 grams, and 342 yards.



The hat is Shedir, by Jenna Wilson, from the Fall 2004 edition of Knitty. I wasn't sure at first that the yarn would work with this pattern, because such delicate crosses would seem to require the most perfect and even of yarns, to avoid getting lost in the texture of the yarn. But it turns out that slightly uneven handspun works well, too. The cables probably would have popped more if I used a worsted spun yarn, which would be smoother. But I like the subtle and soft look that the woolen yarn gives to the hat. This is my favorite hat, and I honestly can hardly believe that I made it from scratch.



These last two hats are also knit from handspun rolags. These rolags are from washed corriedale locks that I bought from Julie (jsandell on Ravelry) a while ago. Having worked with other corriedale since then, and having discussed the nature of these particular locks with her, I think I've come to the conclusion that this is not typical corriedale. In some ways it behaved more like a longwool would, in that it wasn't as crimpy, and had a very smooth feel to it. In retrospect, it was not the ideal fiber for rolags, since I've found that I prefer rolags and longdraw spinning with very crimpy fibers. But I made it work, and enjoyed the experience.



That is about 550 yards of a 3 ply, 9 WPI yarn. It was all spun longdraw from the rolags, and wasn't quite as even as it looked. I don't think it was as even as the merino I spun up for the hat. Next, I dyed it:




This was my first (and only, so far) experience dyeing anything, and I was happy with the results. It turned out darker than what I was going for, but I think the yarn was just perfect this way, so it was a happy accident.

I knit two hats with the yarn. The first hat was too big for the intended recipient, and the hat would just not shrink, no matter what I did to it. A very strange corriedale, indeed, as I'd expect most corriedale to full easily if given the opportunity. I think it was the relative lack of crimp in the yarn.



This too-large hat is from Jared Flood's Turn A Square pattern. It's a beautiful hat (if I may toot my own horn), and I'm sure I'll be able to find someplace to donate it. Heck, I know it won't felt in the wash, so I bet that even charities that don't usually take wool (because of felting fears) could make good use of it!

I decided that my second try at a hat for Jan would not only be on smaller needles with slightly fewer stitches, but would also incorporate more of a ribbing-based pattern, for optimal fit flexibility. I decided on the spindle stitch pattern from Charlene Schurch's book More Sensational Knitted Socks.



The hat fits her perfectly.


I do have one other hat that I've knit in the past few months, but I'm not blogging about that yet. That hat was also knit from fiber that I prepped (on combs) and spun myself, and uses a beautiful Barbara Walker stitch pattern. I did a ton of work designing a way to decrease the top of the hat in an unusual and interesting way that flows out of the intricate stitch pattern, and am probably going to submit the pattern to the Twist collective, for consideration for their Fall issue. Writing up that proposal is on my to-do list for this long weekend. I really wish I could share the photos with you, because I am immensely proud of the hat. This one was also for a co-worker (a Secret Santa gift), and luckily fit her perfectly on the first try. More on that another time, I suppose.


My spinning wheel has been incredibly busy so far this year. I have finished spinning the yarn for a sweater. That's how busy. More on that soon, I hope.


Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, Sophie was born the day after my last post, and is indeed an extraordinary little person. She has beautiful red hair and at least one dimple, and is so incredibly charming in photos that I fear I may be bowled completely over when I get to meet her in person. To my delight, the sweaters are a bit big on her, which means she gets to grow into them and wear them that much longer.