My school colors

About half of the projects on my plate/in mind at the moment are secret, and as such can't be discussed. Makes for pretty boring blogging, not to mention that I've been abandoned by my husband for a week and am trying to wrangle two children on my own. However, there has been some knitting going on, mostly late at night with the companionship of Vampire Bill et al.

First thing I've been working on is the first installment of the Knit Love Club 2010 sock club. It arrived a couple of weeks ago, and I've been loving it.

The yarn is Alchemy Juniper, colorway "Rumplestiltskin" (club exclusive), and the pattern is by Socktopus/Knit Nation braintrust Alice. The yarn is lovely (if a bit splitty for doing k4tog/ssssk, but what wouldn't be?) and the exact color of roasted butternut squash. Really. See?

The pattern is fun to knit and looks way more complicated then it is. I've had to do some adjusting to make the leg a bit longer and make sure I don't run out of yarn, but I'm well into the foot now and I think I'll have plenty. Maybe even some leftovers for The Blanket.

Project #2 is the big spinning project. I try to do about an hour a night on this at least, and I've now filled five bobbins.

That's the good news. The bad news is that I still have this much fiber left to spin, and only three more bobbins available.

That bump on the left is 171 gr and the one on the right (much compacted) is a whopping 472 gr (half of what I started with). Ooof. I was considering trying to get the spinning done during the Olympics, but we're going out of town for seven days for half-term holiday, and the wheel is not invited to Tunis with us.

Instead, last night I started swatching for this for the Olympics. I have serious color choice issues in stranded knitting, so I'm going to knit this vest (which I've been lusting over for ever) instead. I did one swatch last night, and have ruled out three colors and one needle size so far, so we'll see what happens. There is much more swatching for another secret project in a yarn I've never used before, but I think I want to marry. And so on and so on. So apologies for the lack of new, shareable content, but it may be a couple of weeks before I get to anything more interesting then the socks, purple yarn making and random Fair Isle swatches.

A big project

I'm embarking on my first, real-live "spin a specific yarn for a specific pattern" odyssey, using the two pounds of dyed purple "wool top" mentioned in this post, spinning a worsted weight yarn for this lovely pattern.

Here's what I need: ~1300 yds of worsted weight yarn, with a grist of 840 yds/pound. The good news is that since I have two pounds of fiber, I've got a bunch to sample with before I run up against the 1.5 pounds I'll need for actual yarn for the sweater.

Other things I "need": a yarn structure that will work well with garter stitch and the fancy stitch pattern in the yoke. To me this is crying out for at least a 3-ply yarn, just because lots of plies make for a rounder yarn that rocks the hell out of the garter stitch.

I also "need" a way to spin this that won't A) take forever and ever, amen and B) will give me a lofty, puffy, snuggly yarn that will result in a lovely snuggly sweater.

Sampling Plan A: the 3-ply versus the 4 strand cabled yarn. I took two 1 oz chunks of fiber, and spun them up using my version of long draw, from the fold. For one aliquot of fiber (that's not the right word and it sounds really funny to use it in this context, but it will work), I split it in three equal chunks, spun each chunk on to a separate bobbin at 7.5:1, and did a true 3-ply.

Before washing

After washing, and a more representative photo of the actual yarn color

The second fiber aliquot got split into 4 chunks, spun the same way. Two sets of two bobbins were plied together at 9.25:1, aiming for an overplied 2-ply. Then those two bobbins of 2-ply were plied back on each other at 7.5:1.

I checked the wpi of the two sample skeins before finishing: the 3-ply was about 14 wpi, and the cabled yarn was about 12 wpi. I was aiming for about 10 wpi in the finished yarn. Since both yarns were a bit on the fine side, I did a fulling wash: yarn was dunked in hot water with Soak with a bit of agitation, then put in cold water and agitated again. Repeated the hot/cold switch until the strands in the skeins started to stick together a bit, then squeezed out the excess water, thwacked against the side of the house, and hung to dry.

Here they are post-wash, 4 strand cable on the left, 3-ply on the right. I ended up with ~30 yds of the cabled yarn, and 60 yds of the 3-ply. As expected, the 3-ply ended up a bit on the light side, coming in with a grist of 1066 yds/pound. The cabled yarn was much closer - 800 yds/pound.

Now it's time to knit up some (gasp!) swatches. Thankfully, just in garter stitch. I also need to consult The Grist Bible and perhaps some of these technically inclined folks to see how close my grist needs to be for this scenario. Plan B, if these really don't work out, will be a true 4-ply with lots of plying twist, and maybe a 5-ply (!).