Saturday, November 1, 2008

NaBloPoMo 2

It's November and I want to get back into the habit of blogging so I've decided to do NaBloPoMo again. I think this should actually make me write about all of the projects I'm working on or have finished since this summer. Hurray for motivation!

I was going to start with the random 5 meme that OzB tagged me for but I think I will leave that until tomorrow. Tonight I'm obsessed with the idea of knitting myself a sweater out of my own handspun. That I knit a swatch, washed it and am now waiting for it to dry is one of the only reasons I haven't cast on already.

It all started back in September while I was trying to get a sense of my new neighbourhood. I discovered that Ariadne Knits was within walking distance and that it advertised some spinning supplies. I picked out a 4 oz braid of dark BFL dyed with blues and greens. As I was spinning it up I decided that it would be nice as part of an argyle sweater.

I went back to Ariadne and got another 4 oz braid of Coopworth dyed in the same blues and greens. Because it was a white fleece the colours were much clearer and I hoped that they would make the colours in the dark fleece show up a bit more.

I then spun some of the 2 lbs of Falkland wool that I bought some time ago from Hello Yarn.

The yarns then sat around for several weeks while I debated whether I really wanted to knit an argyle vest or whether I wanted to go with something simpler like stripes. Then the other day I happened to move things around and ended up setting the dark BFL next to some Dark Welsh that I spun up on a whim while trying to spin loosely. The yarns looked so good together that I decided that the Dark Welsh needed to be part of whatever I knit up.

So today I finally took pictures of all this yarn and decided that I have enough for a sweater instead of just a vest. I knit up a swatch using 3 different needle sizes and a variety of stripes. Although I spun the white Falkland especially for this project I think I will leave it out. Looking at the swatch I think the 3 darker wools look really good together but the white just doesn't fit. I have about 590 yards of Dark Welsh, 290 yards of the blue/green BFL and 290 yards of the blue/green Coopworth; all three yarns are somewhere between a DK and a Worsted weight. I think I will alternate Dark Welsh stripes with blue/green stripes.

I really hope that I have enough yarn to complete this project because I don't think I can easily get more of any of it.

2 comments:

Briley said...

What about dying some of the Falkland so you can be certain you have enough. Although, it sounds like you have a enough yardage in the coloured wools for a sweater for me, and I am going to guess you are smaller.

OzB said...

Yah, dyeing wome of the Falkland might be a good idea. I love the other yarns together. Depending upon the sweater you want to knit....you may or may not have enough yardage.

You've spun some beautiful yarn Jen :-) Glad to read your blog again :-)