Catching Up
I had one crazy week last week, without much time for blogging, so I've fallen a bit behind on posting my silly little knitting endeavors. (Pardon me for sounding as though I'm minimizing knitting. No, no! I only minimize my recent projects because they've mostly been using my handspun pyarn, which is still pretty sad and not really worthy of being knit just yet.)
To catch up . . . remember this?
It turned into this (actually two of these, but the other one still needs ends woven in).
The pattern is Anne Hanson's Hot Waffles. Although the finished mitts are really rather pathetic, the pattern did help to raise them from pure trash into something not so bad. The textured waffle pattern lends itself fairly well to a less than perfect yarn, so I think it was a pretty good choice for this pyarn, which was one of my very first attempts at spindling.
Remember this?
This one turned into this:
This is an Almost Scarf. The finished piece ended up only long enough to serve as a muffler, draped around the neck and crisscrossed in front beneath a jacket. I seem to have some sort of delusion about yardage with the spindle. Even if I do a rough yardage measure when making it into a skein, it's as though my brain just will not accept that it took me so much time to create so little pyarn and so I just pumped the yardage figure upward and tried to convince myself it was enough for a scarf.
Although not enough for a real scarf, I have to say that I really love the way it looks. The colors are among my favorite and I like the way they knit up, with lots of variation but still a reasonable amount of subtlety. I also think the stitch pattern works nicely to blend with the imperfections of the yarn. The stitch is a super-simple faggoting. Although I normally associate faggoting with lace, it worked really nicely to create a highly textured fabric and also one that's reversible. The faggot stich I used on this is the world's simplest: Even number of stitches cast on, and then every row - right and wrong side - is K2TOG, YO. A selvage stitch at each edge caps it off.
Then there are these:
The teal green one is another handpsun that I forgot to photograph before knitting it up. The other is FF Merino/Tencel Sock Yarn. I used Anne Hanson's Spiraluscious pattern, but without the edging that goes around the bottom. I had only a small quantity of the handspun and a bit of leftovers from the sock yarn to work with and so I just made simple neckwarmers without the edging detail. As I look at the photo, it looks as though I actually screwed up the green one. Looks like I missed a row or something in the pattern and didn't even notice it (how on earthy could I not see that while knitting?). Ah well. These things happen (well, to me anyway ;).
There's some new handspun waiting in the wings now:
This one I didn't ply and will see how it goes to knit as a single. I chose not to ply it mostly because this was a failed dyeing experiment, with long stretches of fiber in semi-solid shades of blue. I think it will look better knit up without plying, so that the long stretches of color can fade in and out rather than having mostly dark yarn with the occasional barber pole of light blue plied in. We shall see.
The yarn itself is again just pyarn. It doesn't seem much better than what I've spun previously (although it is far, far thinner, spun on my newly acquired lightweight spindle). What you can't know from looking at the photo, however, is that there was a big leap in progress with this skein. I forced myself to stop the "park and draft" method and actually drafted the fiber as I spun on this one. It was a difficult transition and I still have a loooong way to go for that to be comfortable and for the results to be even, but it was still a big step forward just to manage the juggling act of drafting as I went.
Lest you think that these little projects have kept me from dyeing, here's a small sneak preview of just a couple of new things coming.
And this:
There are more as well, all patiently waiting in the wings for their pictures to be taken, names assigned, labels put on, and listing descriptions written. It will then be their turn for their day in the sun, as they will be added to my shop very soon.
That's about all the news that's fit to print here. Hope everything is going wonderfully for all of you!
I had one crazy week last week, without much time for blogging, so I've fallen a bit behind on posting my silly little knitting endeavors. (Pardon me for sounding as though I'm minimizing knitting. No, no! I only minimize my recent projects because they've mostly been using my handspun pyarn, which is still pretty sad and not really worthy of being knit just yet.)
To catch up . . . remember this?
It turned into this (actually two of these, but the other one still needs ends woven in).
The pattern is Anne Hanson's Hot Waffles. Although the finished mitts are really rather pathetic, the pattern did help to raise them from pure trash into something not so bad. The textured waffle pattern lends itself fairly well to a less than perfect yarn, so I think it was a pretty good choice for this pyarn, which was one of my very first attempts at spindling.
Remember this?
This one turned into this:
This is an Almost Scarf. The finished piece ended up only long enough to serve as a muffler, draped around the neck and crisscrossed in front beneath a jacket. I seem to have some sort of delusion about yardage with the spindle. Even if I do a rough yardage measure when making it into a skein, it's as though my brain just will not accept that it took me so much time to create so little pyarn and so I just pumped the yardage figure upward and tried to convince myself it was enough for a scarf.
Although not enough for a real scarf, I have to say that I really love the way it looks. The colors are among my favorite and I like the way they knit up, with lots of variation but still a reasonable amount of subtlety. I also think the stitch pattern works nicely to blend with the imperfections of the yarn. The stitch is a super-simple faggoting. Although I normally associate faggoting with lace, it worked really nicely to create a highly textured fabric and also one that's reversible. The faggot stich I used on this is the world's simplest: Even number of stitches cast on, and then every row - right and wrong side - is K2TOG, YO. A selvage stitch at each edge caps it off.
Then there are these:
The teal green one is another handpsun that I forgot to photograph before knitting it up. The other is FF Merino/Tencel Sock Yarn. I used Anne Hanson's Spiraluscious pattern, but without the edging that goes around the bottom. I had only a small quantity of the handspun and a bit of leftovers from the sock yarn to work with and so I just made simple neckwarmers without the edging detail. As I look at the photo, it looks as though I actually screwed up the green one. Looks like I missed a row or something in the pattern and didn't even notice it (how on earthy could I not see that while knitting?). Ah well. These things happen (well, to me anyway ;).
There's some new handspun waiting in the wings now:
This one I didn't ply and will see how it goes to knit as a single. I chose not to ply it mostly because this was a failed dyeing experiment, with long stretches of fiber in semi-solid shades of blue. I think it will look better knit up without plying, so that the long stretches of color can fade in and out rather than having mostly dark yarn with the occasional barber pole of light blue plied in. We shall see.
The yarn itself is again just pyarn. It doesn't seem much better than what I've spun previously (although it is far, far thinner, spun on my newly acquired lightweight spindle). What you can't know from looking at the photo, however, is that there was a big leap in progress with this skein. I forced myself to stop the "park and draft" method and actually drafted the fiber as I spun on this one. It was a difficult transition and I still have a loooong way to go for that to be comfortable and for the results to be even, but it was still a big step forward just to manage the juggling act of drafting as I went.
Lest you think that these little projects have kept me from dyeing, here's a small sneak preview of just a couple of new things coming.
And this:
There are more as well, all patiently waiting in the wings for their pictures to be taken, names assigned, labels put on, and listing descriptions written. It will then be their turn for their day in the sun, as they will be added to my shop very soon.
That's about all the news that's fit to print here. Hope everything is going wonderfully for all of you!
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4 comments:
Deb, you are such a tease!! Those new colors look so yummy!
Nothing wrong with your handspuns. They are beautiful and knit up into some gorgeous items.
You are coming along quite nicely on the spinning! That blue looks lovely! We'll be meeting at Panera next Wednesday Afternoon from 2 to 4 - please come join us again!
You're killing me with these sneaky peaks of new colors. I'm afraid you will unveil them Monday and by the time I get home from work they'll all be gone!
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