Imaginary post

Warning: picture-overloaded post ahead

I was absolutely convinced that I'd started a post about my finished Sour Fig yarn, but Blogger says no. I'll just have to blame my aging Mommy brain for that little mental hiccup. So this post will be a finished yarn and a finished object all in one!

First up: the yarn. As previously described, I took my spindle on our trip back to the US, and after a horrible injury and fabulous repair, I whizzed through 4 oz of Sour Fig Shetland from Adrian.

That's it in the lower right corner - sadly I have no photo of the original fiber, but there's a bunch here.

It took me about four days to spin up the six singles and do the 2-plies. This included spinning in the car, and spinning at every available second during the day. I was determined to ply in one go, so I ended up with a very full spindle, to say the least.

When it was all wound off and soaked and thwacked and dried, I had 56 yds of super bulky yarn with a very interesting texture.

The next problem was to figure out something to make out of it - 56 yds is not very much, but I thought I could maybe get a cowl or a hat out of it. I went for the one willow cowl by Jennifer Casa, and 3 hours later I had a finished object.

The pattern is a simple 1x1 twisted rib cowl, where you knit through the back loop but purl normally. I kept going until I ran out of yarn, which meant I had to tink back several rows so I could cast off successfully. But there it is - instant gratification knitwear, and it's thick enough to ward off some serious winter weather.

Which means it will probably go in to the gift box. Because no matter what my office mates say, London winters are so not bad. But there's one Christmas item done!

A long neglected FO

So, there's a number of unblogged and neglected projects lying around. Sometime in the last few months I managed to finish up one of these unloved things and got it into wearable shape.

I did blog about this project a few times last summer...I started it on June 4th of last year and finished it on August 30. And then put it on and screamed in agony. Behold, the disaster that was the Aran Necklace Camisole:

Not so bad from the front, right? But look.

Ooops! For a summer sweater, that's a bit low in the armholes I'd say. So...the above pictures were actually taken in March of this year. It ended up being an easy fix when I finally got down to it. I started by just using some matching weight yarn and mattress stitching the armholes closed a few inches, but it looked terrible. Out came the yarn, in came a needle and thread. Ta da!

Not the best look up close, but it works in the wearing.

Sorry for the craptastic photo, but I'm on Day 5 of 10 of single parenthood - my photographer is gallivanting around northern China for the week, courtesy of his employer, so I'm stuck with the self-photo.

Pattern: Aran Necklace Camisole (Rav link) by Caroline Bautista
Yarn: Jo Sharp Soho Summer DK Cotton, 6 skeins (approximately 650 yds)
Needles: US 4/3.5 mm
Start/finish: 4 June - 30 August 2010, finally finished in March 2011
Comments/mods: loved knitting the neckline section with the cabley bits, even though I seem to have messed it up a bit so that it's off center. Picking up the stitches around the neckline and then knitting down in stockinette was, um, boring. And the yarn? Let's just say I'm glad that it is out of the stash and into a sweater that I can actually wear. Cotton and I do not get along well, particularly splitty harsh-to-knit-with cotton...

Note: this does not count for my August sweater, since the knitting was finished last year. But it will go in the FO win column for the year.

FO: June/July socks

Pattern: Charade by Sandra Park
Yarn: Brooklyn Handspun Soft Strength, colorway "Persephone", from Knit Love Sock Club 2010
Needles: US 1.5/2.5 mm magic loop
Start/finish: 1 June - 15 July 2011
Comments/mods: This yarn arrived in one of my Knit Love Club shipments last year, and I wasn't sold on the yarn/pattern combination so it went into the stash. A year later, and it's become a lovely pair of socks.

This pattern is well written, with a really nice stitch pattern. The only change I made was to make the foot long enough to fit me. The socks are a bit tight around the foot, and not really my colors, so I think they're going to become a gift. If my grandmother were still around, I'd give them to her - I have fond memories of pouring over the Preppy Handbook with great fascination on our summer visits to her house, and this pink and green color combo would have been perfect for her.

I like the herringbone rib alot.

So, after two months almost, my June socks are finally done. Total pairs so far for 2011: 7, right on track. I've already cast on for August's pair - they're awfully fiddly, so I'm getting a head start.

Fiber Friday: Tdf Yarn #3

Hooray! The huge whacking pile of Romney is done!

Fiber: Hello Yarn Fiber Club September 2010 offering, "Timber" Romney
Spun/plied: 9.25:1/8.5:1, 3-ply (and chain ply for the leftovers)
Stats: 1087 yds/23.5 oz, ~10-12 wpi, ~730 ypp, about DK weight.

My first experience spinning Romney was not terribly successful - it was fun to spin, but the finished product was scratchy and not so pleasant. I suspect that spinning from the fold was the culprit, leaving all those coarser staple ends to stick out. This time around I spun worsted style, and the finished product is a win.

I had six bags of fiber, and I wanted to mix up all the colors as much as possible. I split each 4 oz piece into fourths, then strip each length into four pieces. I lined up the six bags and put a strip into each one sequentially. I won't know until I start knitting it up how well the mixing worked, but I'm pretty certain there won't be a predictable stripe sequence!

Given my prediliction to overtwist, and the tendency of coarser fibers to get wirey with too much twist, I choose to spin this on a lower ratio then I usually use, and to ply on an even lower ratio. This is the first time I've used the plying head for my Lendrum in almost 4 years, but it was perfect for this yarn (and gave me 8 oz skeins!). I tried to be sure I wasn't putting in too much plying twist especially - I wanted the yarn to be nice and loose and drapey. The first skein is perfect, but the other two might have a bit too much plying twist. I debated going back through and taking out a bit of twist, but decided to leave it for post-TdF.

I had 0.5 oz of singles left over which I chain plied - I don't know the yardage yet, as they're drying on the back porch as we speak - and I hope there's enough there for trim on something. It's kind of neat to see how the chain ply compares to the 3 ply in terms of how the colors play off each other. The 3 ply looks pretty garish up close, but from farther away (or on the spinning bobbin as I was skeining it) the colors blend really nicely.

Now I've got to decide on a sweater pattern. I'm thinking something with garter stitch because of the 3 ply, maybe Cobblestone, but I need to go do some pattern searching on Ravelry. After the Tour finishes however...there's about 12 oz to go on my list!

Day 14: 32 oz of a proposed 44 finished. I only need to do another 8 oz to beat last year's total!

The last day of school

And the teacher gifts are finished. Blocked even. I have got to start doing this earlier next year!

Patterns: Lacy Karius, Lacy Baktus, Mezquita Shawl (from left to right)
Yarn: Malabrigo Sock in Aguas (which is mostly green), Cote d'Azure and Playa (again left to right), less then a full skein for each
Needles: US: 3/3.25 mm, US 2/2.75 mm and US 5/3.75 mm.
Start/finish: 6 June - 27 June, 5 June - 1 July, and 2 July - 4 July
Comments/mods: I started off with the middle scarf, but then thought the variegation of the yarn might look better in the stockinette version (Karius), so I started the left hand scarf and finished it first.

I worked the first and last stitch of every row in garter, hoping to keep it from curling too much, and after blocking it seemed ok. I love the drape of the yarn in stockinette at a larger gauge. I also love this colorway - I'm desperate for a sweater in this yarn, but as the rotational speed of the Earth has not yet slowed, I'm kind of out of luck for the immediate future.

When I went back to the garter stitch version (Baktus), I had more done then I remembered, so I kept on in garter stitch. And it works quite well too, although next time I think I would use a US 3/3.25 mm needle instead of the US 2/2.75 that I started with.

By scarf 3, I was tired of the Baktus/Karius deal, so I found a lovely shawl pattern with a construction similar to the pattern I used for last year's teacher gifts. I cast on with a needle 3 sizes smaller then called for, and the scarf was still going to be monstrous (and take forever!), so I cut the number of repeats almost in half - from 36 down to 20. I should have done something in the middle - maybe 27 - because this mini version is really mini. Blocked out, it sits very nicely over my shoulders, but there isn't really enough extra to wrap loosely. I'm hoping the fact that the recipient is smaller then me will help that problem.

Right, now that the pesky deadline knitting is done with, it's back to the spinning wheel! WIth assistance from my little buddy of course...