Travel knitting

So, tomorrow we go haring off to the Continent for ten days, and I'm trying to figure out what to take to knit. The plane trip isn't all that long, but I'll be in a car touring Bavaria and Austria for a while, so I need some small projects to work on.

Thankfully, I've got a couple of design ideas that need some work, so I'm packing up bits of yarn and lots of different needle sizes, a bunch of Xeroxed pages from Barbara Walker Vol I and II, and I'm hoping for the best. Here's what's on the docket:

A new sock pattern, (maybe) for Sock Madness 2011.

Some swatching for the 4! Ounce! Challenge!.

My Aran Necklace Tank (wait, that's not my design...). This baby is now joined for the body, and it's just mindless knitting in the round from now until I run out of yarn. So I'm packing the last of the splittier-then-all-get-out Jo Sharp Soho DK and hoping for the best.

I'm afraid blogging will be spotty for the next little while - I've got one post in reserve that I'll schedule for next week, but other then that, things will be quiet. And since the Wollmeise shop is closed when we'll be in Munich, I don't even have the lure of serious yarn pr0n to tease you with. And no one is sorrier then me, believe me...

Fiber Friday: Yarn #2

TdF yarn #2: Hello Yarn Fiber club BFL in "Insect Wings"
Spun/plied at 12:1, short forward draw (worsted), 3 ply.
Stats: 2 big skeins of 3-ply, at 255 and 254 yds respectively (score!), and one mini-skein of 2-ply from leftovers, about 30 yds. 9.8 oz of fiber total.

So with this fiber, I wanted to spin two matching skeins of 3-ply for socks. I split the 10 oz of fiber I had (double dose FTW!) into three equal weight piles. For the first ply, I split the entire length of top in half and spun each half on to separate bobbins.

The second bump I split in fourths, and spun two strips on to each of two bobbins (in the middle).

The final bump got split into eigths and spun 4 pieces on to each bobbin (bobbins 1 and 1' on top row, bobbins 2 and 2' in middle, bobbins 3 and 3' on bottom row).

And then there was the plying...

I loved the colors in the original fiber, but as I was plying, I was a bit concerned. It looked really...orange. And orange is not exactly one of my most favoritist colors. However, after a soak in warm water and a bit of time on the back porch drying,

I fell in love.

Perfect autumn colors for some gorgeous socks. Sometime in the future. Maybe that should be my Vuelta project?

I've been having fun making collages of my spinning pictures and pictures of the girls. Here's one with the berries I mentioned last week:

And it includes a wee teaser for next week's finished yarn!

Fiber Friday: Yarn #1

Well, clearly the Tour de Fleece coupled with summer vacation is enough to completely wipe out any motivation I have for blogging. Sorry about that! But rest assured that I have a) enough new handspun yarn to last for at least three weeks of Fibery Fridays, with more to come, b) some knitting progress and c) lots and lots of berries.

The first of my finished TdF yarns.
Fiber: Wensleydale, dyed by Adrian in the Mollusc colorway, a fiber club offering from August or September of 2007
Spun: I was going for laceweight singles, so I used the regular flyer for my Lendrum at 7.5:1.
Stats: two skeins, coming in at 467 yds/4.7 oz and 465 yds/4.1 oz - 1590 and 1815 ypp respectively. ANywhere from 35-50 wpi.

This top was an extra batch I ordered when I received my original fiber club offering, and I had visions of spinning it all up for a BSJ for some lucky baby. However, I'd never spun a longwool before, so it sat in the stash for a long time. I decided that part of my challenge was going to be spinning up the earliest fibers from my stash, and this is definitely one of those. This time around though, the colors spoke to me more for a big lacy shawl, so laceweight singles were on the menu.

The fiber was actually really easy to spin, once I stopped being scared of it. The top was much narrower then I've seen before with other wools (merino, shetland, etc), and needed a bit of predrafting after it's long hibernation, but after that it spun easily. I did notice my hands were a lot farther apart then they are for shorter fibers, but it wasn't too hard to adapt to the staple length.

I finished the skeins with a fulling bath. I was really worried that I'd added to much twist because the yarn before finishing was waaaaaaay overtwisted. However, three times through a hot/cold bath tamed that, and they ended up balanced. Yippee! The finished yarn has an absolutely gorgeous halo, and is super soft. The colors blended in the singles in such a way so that there's really nice transitions between the colors. I can't wait to knit this up, but I need to find a good 950 yd shawl pattern. Anyone have any suggestions?

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Now for knitting (and keeping with the color theme): I've been working a bit on my Aran Necklace Camisole in the past couple of days as my spinning mojo has gotten a bit burnt out.

It's coming along, and I'm now working on the front gussets, and should be getting the front done over the weekend. The yarn (Jo Sharp Soho DK) is still pissing the crap out of me - umpteen-plied splitty cotton yarn is not my friend - and I'm pretty sure I'm going to run out before the top is really finished, but I like the color, and I'm hoping it will be long enough not to show off my oh-so-lovely mom midriff. Stay tuned.

FO times six: Annis

Pattern: Annis by Susanna IC
Yarns: hand-me-down turquoise wool from my grandmother, teal handspun, Malabrigo lace in pink and blue, dyed-by-me coned silk.
Needles: US 8/5.0 mm and occasionally, US 10/6.0 mm.
Started/finished: 11 June - 6 July 2010.
Comments/mods: I picked this pattern because I wanted something that would go pretty quickly but not be too boring. I chose so well! The pattern is very simple, but the resulting shape is just gorgeous. It's also vastly adaptable - I forsee doing a number of these with various edgings from my stitch dictionaries, and there's at least one mega-version in Jaggerspun wool/silk on the list for me somewhere down the line.

Since I did something a bit different for each one, I'm going to go in order.

Annis #1 - by the book.

I did this one as written, with the exception of using US 8/5.0 mm needles and a backwards loop cast-on to start with (same cast-on used for all). Finished this one in three days when Himself took off for his bike ride. For Boo's Mon/Friday nursery teacher/girls' occasional babysitter. Details on Ravelry

Annis #2 - handspun, shrunken

This one is for Boo's main nursery teacher, who earned the only handspun version by being a knitter herself, and complimenting me on Boo's Nemo set early on in our relationship. Sadly, she is not coming back next year, so I wanted to make her something really nice. I cut out two of the 12 stitch repeats and the nupps because I was worried about running out of yarn. I had plenty left (which, of course, I have no idea what to use for now), but so be it. Did some work on this on the beach in Cornwall while the girls climbed on the rocks. Six days - clearly I was too busy eating ice cream and lying in the sun. Ravelry details here.

Annis #3 - pink Malabrigo

For Devil's teaching assistant, a lovely young lady who is also leaving at the end of the year. I went back to the pattern without mods for this as well. And as I slogged along, I threw out the idea of doing any more nupps on these things. Too slow! Four days to finish, 32 g of yarn, Ravelry.

Annis #4 - beads!

For Devil's main teacher, whom she has absolutely adored. Mrs. A is having her first baby in October, and I wanted to make her something nice for the fall. Pale blue Malabrigo, blue seed beads instead of nupps, correct number of repeats, but I made the short rows longer (fewer of them) to try and speed things up. Three days, 30 g, details.

Annis #5 - red dyed coned silk

Several years ago I ended up with a lot of coned machine knitting yarn. I got rid of most of it when we moved, but held on to one cone of natural colored laceweight that was labeled silk. I'm not sure it actually is silk, but it dyed with acid dyes, so it's some kind of protein fiber. In retrospect, I should have used smaller needles for this one, because it ended up pretty holey on the 5.0 mm needles. Oh well. No time to go back and redo! No nupps, longer short rows. For Boo's other nursery teacher, who is also not returning. Five days, and I think I may get rid of the rest of the cone, even though there's a ton left. I didn't like knitting with it. On Ravelry.

Annis #6 - mini-version

I had 22 g of blue Malabrigo left, so I decided to try and squeeze out on more mini-Annis. Took out four repeats, yarn overs instead of nupps, and I still had to bind off a few rows early. But it blocked out to reasonable size. This is for Dev's reading teacher, who broke her foot very badly a couple of weeks ago and has decided to retire. Three days, 20 g, Ravelry.

Blocking: all of these were soaked in cool water and Soak, and spun out in the washing machine before being pinned out. I threaded blocking wires through each of the points on the bottom edge, pinned the top two corners and stretched the whole thing out.

I tried pinning the top edge on the first two, but found that it was unneccessary - just stretching out the lace part smoothed everything out. They do tend to be a bit on the narrow side however, so I probably could have gotten a bit more width if I'd futzed around with the top edge. So be it.

I'm hoping that the vast exodus of teachers has nothing to do with my kids, but it is unfortunate that it's all coming this year. The girls have loved the school and, while they're looking forward to summer break, I suspect they're going to miss everyone a great deal.

Bonus!

An unexpected upside to living in the UK: when Interweave sends out a sneaky email about the Hurt Book sale at 11:20 am my time, all my knitterly competitors in the States are likely still asleep. My bank account is now somewhat lighter, and my mother is going to have to deal with a large, heavy box of stitch dictionaries (I got almost every Harmony guide available, even the crochet one!) and some of Franklin's cartoons. I think I'll need a extra bag for our trip this summer to haul all this loot back. Plus some cashola for the heavy bag charge...

There is knitting being done: I have decided on Annis as the teacher present for this year, partly because I think it's lovely, but mostly because I did one and it took me four days. That would have been three days if I hadn't mucked up the stockinette section (only I would do this...). So Numero Dos is on the needles in this, with some modifications for slightly short yardage. First one was 340 yds, and I've only got 305 yds of the handspun, but I think it will be ok. Expect an Annis Rainbow post sometime around the end of the term.