Saluting NaNoWriMo in length, if not in content

I used to find spinning content on blogs boring. It all looked the same to me, I didn't care about it, and I skipped reading blog posts about making yarn in favor of reading blog posts about making things from yarn. And so I must apologize to those of you who read (or used to read) this blog, and are similarly frustrated and bored when I talk about making yarn. While I still love knitting, right now it's spinning that completely captivates me.

I learned how to Navajo ply (or chain ply) last weekend. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be, using a sort of "park and ply" technique. My method was to let the spindle hang, doing whatever it pleased, while I chained up about an arm span's length. I pinched off the top loop with my left hand (so twist wouldn't later enter it), grabbed my chains about halfway down with the same hand, and then used my right hand to roll-start the spin. I let the twist build up in that bottom half of the chained singles, then released the top half (still pinching off that top loop), to let the twist enter the rest of the length. When it was enough twist I'd stop the spindle, wind the plied yarn on, and start again with that loop I pinched off at the top. I don't think the process was much slower than what I could reasonably do on a drop spindle without "parking", because twist builds up so quickly that I'd have to stop my spindle to wind the yarn on quite often, anyway. I can't wait until I have a wheel and can ply more smoothly and continuously, though. I found Navajo plying to be a quite soothing process once I got the hang of it. There were frustrating moments, like when I'd start the spin at such a great speed and angle that the spindle would fly across the room, leaving a mess of tangles in its wake.



The photo above is of two of the four colors of the Shetland sampler, after being plied and set. My camera batteries and natural light both ran out before I could properly photograph the other two colors. These two colors and the light brown are all about a fingering weight, though I admit that I haven't done a WPI count, yet. The grey, which I spun first, seems to be more of a sport weight.

I was concerned about the yarn after I plied it and before I set it because it seemed stringy. There was hardly any bounce to it. But after a good simmer on the stove, the yarn really came to life. It's quite elastic now, and I'm very proud of it. It feels like when I first became confident in my stranded colorwork abilities -- when that lightbulb came on, and I realized that I had the tools to knit all the Starmore sweaters my heart could desire. After all that concern about having spent dozens upon dozens of hours spinning a stringy, lifeless yarn, the joy of seeing what bounce and spring the setting process gave it has left me with a feeling of confidence and fibrous power. I can SPIN! I can make things I want to knit with!

Unfortunately, I don't think I have enough to knit the colorwork hat that I'd planned, so I may send the yarn itself to the friend for whom I was hoping to knit the hat, so she has a chance to crochet with some woolly handspun. I do think I'll keep the thicker grey for myself, to incorporate in what I'm already calling the "Scrapple" bag. Alex and I have been using my Coronet hat as a Scrabble bag, and that just won't do. Little bits of handspun, though, have great potential to remedy this situation.

I also Navajo plied some of the Spunky Eclectic BFL last weekend:



That's about .75 oz, which means I have about 3.25 oz to go. I've ordered a lighter drop spindle, so hopefully I'll be able to comfortably spin more than .75 oz at a time, soon. It's taking a bit longer than I anticipated to get that spindle, so I've had to put the BFL project on hold. It's a bit frustrating because I hardly want to do anything right now more than I want to spin. But of all life's potential hardships, I can hardly complain about this. I think the yarn in the above pic is about a laceweight, though I haven't set it yet, so don't know if it will plump up. Right now the plan is to spin and ply all of it to match this first bit, and then use it for a shawl.

There's been other spinning activity going on in my house, but I'll save that for another post. Instead, here are some socks, for all of you who couldn't care less about the spinning.



This is the Arch-Shaped Sock by Jen Showalter. I used Mama E's C*eye*ber Fiber sock yarn in the colorway Purgatory Orphan, which may not exist anymore. (It was one of the colorways she made when trying to perfect the colorways for Brenda Dayne's Brother Amos socks. I love the name!) I adore the way the socks fit, and am so happy I knit this pattern. I did find that there were some vagaries and mistakes in the pattern itself, but nothing really major if you've knit socks before and have the confidence to rework some minor elements. I do plan to use this shaping in the future, perhaps for a design idea I have, and do plan to alter it so it works a bit more elegantly with the gusset decreases. But I'd definitely recommend that anyone with decent arches knit a pair of these for themself. They really do hug your feet.

You can probably tell that I altered the pattern a bit, to continue the ribbing down the front of the foot. I've been doing a lot of ribbing lately, including a hat design that is based on the same idea I want to use for the sock design I mentioned above. Here is a sneak peek at one of the hats:



More on that later, when the pattern is written. (Don't worry, I'm self publishing this one, so there won't be any of that annoying months- or year-long teasing about something you can't see!)

I really should have posted some time last week, eh? If you're still reading, I have a book review for you. It's a book you've surely seen reviewed in many other places, but I am so delighted with the book that I feel like I need to add in my "me too." The book is The Knitter's Book of Yarn by Clara Parkes. I should say that I received this book free, from the publisher, as a review copy. I don't feel that that alters my opinion of the book at all, but as a former social science researcher feel a moral obligation to disclose the fact that this book was essentially a gift from the people trying to sell it.

This book is what has been missing from the fiber arts shelves of the bookstore. There are hundreds (or at least dozens) of beautiful, informative, inspiring books on the market about techniques and patterns, but this is the first book I've seen that focuses on yarn, itself. I feel that I know a lot about yarn, as a compulsive researcher (I have been known to check Consumer Reports before buying a simple toaster), and as someone who has been knitting for years and intensely immersing herself in spinning for the past few months. It turns out that I did know a lot, and still learned a lot more from this book. The writing is clear and engaging, the format is easy to follow, and the patterns are clever and interesting. Organizing the patterns by yarn ply is something I've never seen before, and really opened my eyes to mistakes I've made and details I've overlooked in the past about my own yarn choices for projects.

If I could change anything about the book, I'd split it into two volumes. I think that the chapters on fiber type and making yarn, plus an introduction to the characteristics of ply type, could be a book on its own. As much information as this book contains, I want more! I wish all 250 pages were devoted to that exposition, with a companion volume for the patterns, with expanded photographs.

But if my biggest complaint is "I want MORE!," I suppose things aren't all that bad. I'm fairly picky about what books I'll actually buy, and this is a book I know I would have eventually paid money for if I hadn't been lucky enough to receive a copy for free. If you're interested in expanding your knowledge about yarns, and interested in becoming better at matching yarns to patterns (or patterns to yarns), flip through this book, buy it, or at least request that your local library acquire a copy. It's an excellent resource that will not be redundant with anything already on your bookshelf.

No Banana!

The annoying, secret, new pattern knitting is almost over. I swear! The AntiCraft project is even more thrilling than I anticipated it would be, the sock design has been submitted to Knitty, and I'm about to rip out the only recent knitting you've seen a photo of. (The Monkeys were too busy. Bad Monkeys. No banana!)

I'll be back to the Autumn Color Cardigan soon, just in time for the real arrival of the season. We've had several days of rain that broke our recent heat wave. The rain stopped yesterday, and autumn arrived. The air was crisp and cool, plans for apple picking were made, and I took a walk around Robin Hood Pond. The trees are still mostly green, but every so often it's possible to find a beautiful red leaf that's ahead of schedule.



That's Shetland on the spindle, from the sampler pack Brenda sent this summer. And how happy am I that I had a friend to treat me with great wool as I was learning to spin! I recently discovered that the 8 oz. of Romney roving I bought at NHSW feels just icky to spin. I'm not experienced enough to know if I it's because I don't like carded wool, or if there is a problem with the preparation or quality of this roving. Whatever it is, if I hadn't had a pile of nice wool from an experienced spinner to start out with, I fear that I may have given up on spinning!

The wool in the photo above is more brown than it looks. The silvery bits were really picked up in the photograph, but in real life it's quite close to the color of my own hair, which is not yet silver. I've already finished spinning the singles for the grey wool from the sample pack.



There are 2 more colors of Shetland left after these (cream and very dark brown), and then I'll work on plying the singles and coming up with a pattern for them. I think it's got to be colorwork, and that a hat would be nice. I may be tempted to buy a small amount of a soft fiber to spin up yarn for a lining. Shetland isn't the softest stuff, and I figure that my first handspun Shetland will be a real wildcard when it comes to next-to-the-skin wearability. Plus, trying out a small bit of merino (or merino/silk!) on my drop spindle will surely be a character building experience. Maybe I'll try to find the brightest colored roving or top possible, for some fun secret contrast.

To get those grey Shetland singles on the niddy noddy, I had to skein up the yarn that was already on the niddle noddy. I knew I liked it before, but after it was skeined up I just fell in love.



That's half of the Blue Faced Leicester, not yet set, but looking absolutely perfect in my eyes. It's been so long since I spun and plied it that I don't remember the weight and yardage. After I set it I'll get all the measurements again. I plied this batch using the hand plying method I found on Knitty. After trying a center pull ball (complete disaster) and Andean plying (numb digits and messiness), I think this is the plying method for me. I have a feeling that it works best with "old" singles, which is what the BFL was, having sat around for weeks. The Shetland will be old, with relatively little energy in the singles, by the time I ply it. I hope it works as well for that yarn as it did for my darling BFL.


I've been struggling with what to do about the book reviews I mentioned previously. I decided that I really didn't have strong opinions about either of the books I had originally been planning to review, and I feel that a review without strong opinions isn't much of a review at all. One of them may still merit a review, but for now I'll write a little about a book that I do feel strongly about.

I recently found a very cheap copy of Montse Stanley's Knitter's Handbook, a book I'd heard about but had never actually seen in a store before. This book is about as complete a technical guide as I can imagine. I prefer illustrations to photographs, and this book is full of amazingly detailed and clear drawings. Most of the photographs in the book are of finished garments, many of them historical or "vintage", that illustrate specific techniques. Check out the stockings on page 53 -- doesn't it make your jaw just drop!

What's amazing about this book is the variety of options it gives you for so many of the techniques. I'd have bought it just for the chapter on casting on and binding off, which contains techniques I'd never even heard of. Reading through the book made me want to take out a fresh skein of yarn and try out every technique described, including the ones I already knew how to do. The book will make me a better knitter and a better designer, and is cheap enough that I think every knitter should own a copy. The only potential problem with the book is that it uses non-US terminology, which may be confusing for knitters in the US who are first learning and have only see US terminology elsewhere. But even that isn't a huge hurdle, and shouldn't be a hurdle at all for anyone who's information savvy enough to be reading blog posts about knitting.


My other review is a product review, and not quite as glowing. I finally got the chart keeper from Knitpicks, after using the ratty old sheet of metal that I bought a couple of years ago at a yarn store. You know those metal chart holders -- the ones that are just a smidge too small for a standard 8.5 x 11" sheet of paper, leaving you with frayed edges? I foolishly didn't look at the product description for the chart keeper, and admit that my disappointment at its size is my fault. I just assumed that each half of it would be large enough to hold a standard piece of paper, making it a chart tool that would improve upon the one I already owned. Unfortunately, it's half that size. It does open up to a size that would fit an 8.5 x 11" sheet of paper, but that's not very useful because the middle, where it needs to fold, is obviously not backed by metal. (Plus, I'd rather not have to fold my charts.) I've found a few uses for it, but am truly astounded that they decided to make this item so small. Yes, it's more portable. But it's not going to work with most of the charts I'd want to use it for. I suppose it's not worth the expense of sending it back, but I really hope they come out with a larger version. Portability is meaningless if the item you're carrying around doesn't provide the functionality you need it for.

So as not to end the post on a downer (really, the thing is great, if you only ever use teeny charts!), here's a sneak peek at the sweater I'll likely be knitting after I finish my cardigan. It's what Alex requested, and the fall weather is putting me in a back to basics mood. It may also mean another trip to Harrisville to choose just the right color, which is always a good thing.