Plied

Another day of spinning and now my green yarn just needs to be over dyed.
Everything went pretty much as I predicted. I got about a bobbin and a half of singles from my roving. I skeined them on my niddy noddy and discovered that I had about 1170 yards.

So I divided this number by 2, since my niddy noddy makes 2 yard skeins, and then by 3. This gave me the number of wraps of the skein I needed to get into each ball. I put the skein on my swift and counted off the rotations of my swift as I wound the singles into center pull balls.

Finally I plied my 3 singles together and got 396 yards of finished 3 ply.

Now I just need to give my yarn a good whack or two and stick it in the microwave with a bit more blue dye.

Single focus

I've been spinning away at the yellow/green/blue BFL because I can't wait to knit with the finished result. I was originally thinking of making a baby blanket for some friends but I've changed my mind. Now I'm thinking about a nice lap blanket/shawl. It would make a great Christmas present if I can stand to part with it. It really depends what kind of yardage I end up with.

I've spun up one bobbin full and I've got enough fiber for at least another half bobbin. Once it is all spun up I will wind it off onto the niddy noddy and count my yardage. Then I will divide it into 3 equal balls and ply them together. This is what I did for the sample and I'm pleased with how it worked.

I've really fallen in love with how the hand spun knits up. It is soft and has beautiful drape and is full of character. Commercial yarns just can't compete.

I will set aside the hand spun soon, though. I've still got a couple of sweaters that are a bit of sewing and some knitted edging away from being finished. I've decided that I want to get them both done by the end of this month. We'll see how this goes.

Now back to my spinning.

Some pictures

I've got an evening of babysitting ahead of me so I'll make a quick, picture heavy post.

First a picture of the red/orange lace weight now that it is washed and dry and behaving like balanced yarn:


Next the blue BFL I dyed back in May:

And finally the blue/yellow/green mix of BFL:
(before I over dyed with more blue)


(after I over dyed)


(a swatch knit with the final result)

Spun lace weight

Today was another day without knitting. I mostly spent my time plying a bobbin of the BFL that I dyed red back in May.

I'd spun it up as fine as I could thinking I would make a 3 ply for socks or something. Since I'm having fun spinning a bit thicker at the moment, I decided to just ply this single to itself to make a lace weight 2 ply. The plying seemed to take a really long time, which made sense once I got the finished yarn off the wheel and discovered that it was about 680 yards.

When yarn has been sitting on a bobbin for a day or two you can describe it as "rested." This single had been on the bobbin for months so I think it should be described as "hibernating." I had to make a guess about how much twist to put in the ply because the single no longer really twisted up on itself. When the plying was done and I took the finished yarn off the niddy noddy it really wanted to twist up on itself in strange ways:


I have since given the skein a good soaking in hot water and a whack or two and now it is behaving like nicely balance yarn. I'm thinking of knitting myself a nice lacy stole with this. I'm so excited to be spinning yarn in yardages that allow me to knit more than simple hats and scarves.

Spinning my wheels

Today I did absolutely no knitting. This morning I tucked in the ends of yesterday's hat then washed it and blocked it on a dinner plate to stretch it out a bit (I'll have to get some modeled pictures in the next couple of days). This was as close to knitting as it got, though.

Instead I played around with my spinning wheel. First I spun the blue BFL that I dyed last May. It came out to about 170 yards of sock weight yarn. Then I spun up a sample of some BFL that I dyed blue/yellow/green a couple of days ago. The result has a bit too much contrast so I think I will try over dying with some more blue to eliminate the bright yellow and produce a more even green.

Of course a few pictures would go a long way to explaining what I mean but my camera batteries died so they will have to wait until tomorrow. Sigh. I'm going to end up having to do a post that is nothing but a collection of photos: the hat being worn, the sweater in natural daylight, the other sweater I haven't shown yet, the yarn I'm spinning... I'm going have to press gang Ken in the next few days to help me take all these photos. But first I will have to wait for my camera batteries to recharge.

A warm hat

After joking a couple of days ago about knitting a new project in a day, late this afternoon I cast on for a simple hat in bulky wool and now I have a new finished object.

Pattern: Ysolda's Urchin

Yarn: Malabrigo Aquarella. I had 2 skein in the same colourway but differnt dye lots so I alternated wedges. I'm not sure if I ended up using more than one skein total, but I do have leftovers.

Needles: 8 mm. I could easily have gone up a needle size (and technically I should have because I didn't get gauge with the 8mm) but 8mm was the largest sized needle I have.

This is a great little project. It is knit on straight needles, which I love but don't use enough, and is simple garter stitch. So pretty and so quick.

Tomorrow I'll tuck in my ends and neat up the top and then it should be ready to wear.

Fall Shawl

Since I didn't get any good pictures of my sweaters in progress, which are actually in a state better described as 'in purgatory', and I didn't cast on anything new, I'll use today's post to show off an old project.

This is a shawl that I knit as a (late) birthday present for one of my best friends. She wanted a warm shawl to curl up with at home that would cover her arms and not fall off. I thought about doing something fancy but decided that something simple would work better.

I had been thinking of spinning up yarn for this simple shawl and I had some Shetland roving that had been fighting my attempts to spin it fine and worsted. Playing around with spinning thicker, looser yarns, I ended up with about 430 yards of woolen spun Shetland. I did a little swatch to figure out how many square inches of knitting this yardage would get me and then played around with the math to decide how best to use the available square inchage.

I decided that long rows would be best for evening out my somewhat uneven yarn. This also resulted in some nice subtle striping. It is nice when things work out like that.

After I'd knit the center of the shawl I picked up along the edges and knit a garder stitch border using 2 skeins of Harrisville Designs Flax & Wool Blend. The border is much firmer and denser than the center of the shawl which causes it to really hold the shawl on your shoulders. Another happy accident.

As you can tell by the summery photograph, this shawl has been off the needles for some time. In fact I finished it before I left London, though it didn't get in the mail to my friend until I was settled in Montreal. I am really pleased with how this project came together and I was even planning on making myself a similar shawl. The Dark Welsh that makes up half my new sweater was going to be a version of this shawl. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to spin up some more yarn.