FO/FF: Sunset scarf

Pattern: Morning Surf Scarf by Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer
Yarn: My handspun, superwash merino from Crown Mountain Farms, "Sunshine of Your Love", ~125 yds
Needles: US 8/5.0 mm
Start/finish: 1/15-1/17/09. Fast, fast, fast.
Comments: The colors of the yarn reminded me of Tucson sunsets, hence the title. The yarn was bulky (~10 wpi), so I cast on 26 stitches for a scarf that ended up about 6 inches wide.

I also found that my dropped stitches were really long, so I decreased one yarnover for each dropped stitch (i.e. I did yo, double yo, triple yo, double yo, yo instead of the pattern as written). The finished scarf is 6 x 78 inches - plenty long enough to wrap several times around my neck, or double over and pull the ends through.

My attempt to blend the white sections of top with more saturated bits did not work out perfectly. You can see that the end of the scarf on the left was from the skein that had more of the white in it, and the right side is from the skein that had the deeper colors, but it's not terribly obvious when the scarf is on.

One thing that I liked that came out of the spinning method I choose was the almost-tweedy look to some of the singles, where I had multiple colors in one strand, that when plied together came out looking almost mottled. I like how those sections knit up alot - the fabric has a lot of depth and interest to it.

The colors are perfect for dark, grey winter days. Unfortunately, winter in Houston seems to be over - it was in the upper 70s today and just stunningly beautiful - so this scarf may not see much us until next winter. Which I hear starts in September or October across the pond. So hopefully by then I'll be well supplied with scarves and hats and suchlike.

FF: Sunshiney

There's a great Ravelry thread I've been following for a while now, where people post pictures of their handspun projects start to finish: fiber, spun yarn and FO. A brief discussion there generated a new group that I've joined - Ply by Night. This is a spin/knitalong, where everybody buys the same fiber and colorway, and then knits it up. For the first venture (January/February) we're knitting the Morning Surf Scarf.

Since I'm fascinated by the change from fiber to yarn to knit, this was the group for me. We picked superwash merino from Crown Mountain Farms in the "Sunshine of your love" colorway. My fiber arrived right before we left for vacation,

and the day we got back from Boston I started spinning the singles. Let's hear it for spinning as recovery from 17 days with two small children!

The top was very interesting - one side was really saturated, the other side had splotches of white. I decided to try and blend those as much as possible, so I split the top into quarters, and then spun from two pieces of top held together to blend the saturated and white stretches. I ended up with two bobbins like this.

I knew I wanted to chain ply, since I really like the way a 3-ply looks in dropped stitches (as seen in my mini-Clap, also with handspun), so while I was home sick the other day, I plied everything up, soaked it for a bit in warm water and Eucalan, and hung it out to dry. I didn't really do any rough finishing since this is superwash, and the overplying evened out well after finishing.

Before finishing

Having finished a Tomten, and reinvigorated my mojo for another long-slumber WIP, I was going to hold out this stuff as a carrot to get some other things done. But...I couldn't do it. I now have about 8 inches of scarf already hanging off the needles. It's amazing. Should be done by Monday.

Final yarn stats: 126 yds of chain-plied superwash merino (8 oz!), 11-13 wpi before finishing, about 10 wpi after finishing.

FF: Buckland

Ironman just took the girls off to the playground, so I have a few minutes to blog before I run down and meet them. Enough time hopefully to show you December's spinning FO:

Fiber: Finn wool top from Hello Yarn, November 2008 Fiber Club offering, colorway "Buckland", 8 oz
Spun/plied: 10:1 on ST Lendrum
Yardage: 3 ply - 236 yds, 2 ply - 50 yds
WPI: 3 ply - 12 wpi before washing, 11 after washing. 2 ply - 14 wpi before washing, 12 wpi after washing (pictures are pre-washing).

I wanted to do a true 3 ply this time, so I split the fiber into thirds by weight. One third I spun straight from the full width of top, one third I split into thirds before spinning, and the last third I split into approximately thumb thick strips before spinning. All fiber was spun from the fold, supported/assisted long draw.

I let the singles sit on the bobbins for a few days before I plied. The two ply skein was the left over from the two bobbins that had the most singles on them. After I finished the last of the plying, the yarn sat on the bobbins for about 3 weeks while vacation got in the way. Soaked in warm water with a bit of Eucalan and hung out to dry next to the plumbago bush, which was a mistake because I spent a while picking plumbago seed heads out of the yarn before I wound it up.

This was the first time I've spun any real amount of Finn and I found it a bit tricky. Maybe I wasn't in the mood to be particularly attentive, but I had trouble getting the right amount of twist in the singles. I tended towards undertwisting (!) which is never a problem I've had before, and makes me think that it may be time to jump up to the higher ratios - my hands seem to be getting ahead of my feet a bit.

Per usual, Adrian's colors are drop-dead gorgeous. The finished yarn is soft and squishy, and would be perfect for some scarves or hats. I was thinking about making something for the kids, but I'm afraid I might have to keep it for myself. The colors are just too pretty. Maybe they can have the 50 yds of 2 ply for something.

Next week I hope to have my Ply by Night project finished: a bit of Sunshine for some grey winter days!

Fiber Friday: The first Porpoise-dyed from Yarn School

It is still Friday, right? I'm really falling behind here - this yarn has been spun up and done for almost two months, but I'm only getting around to blogging about it now. Pathetic!

Superwash merino, handdyed by yours truly, with Jacquard acid dyes in black, brown, brilliant blue and pumpkin orange I believe.
Spun/plied at 10:1 on ST Lendrum
Stats: ~185 yds, 14 wpi, 4 oz. This is some seriously dense yarn. I was planning on giving this to someone for a Christmas present, but I'm not sure how big her feet are - this is not going to be enough for a pair of socks. Sigh. Which means the other 4 oz I was going to save for myself will have to be spun up for her as well. Too bad...I guess I can always dye more.

I was really surprised by how this yarn turned out. Given the large white stretches in the top, I was expecting it to be a lot lighter.

It's a lot more uniform in color then I thought it would be. The 2-ply barberpole, in this instance, had similar enough tonal values that the whole skein ended up somewhere in the middle of the range instead of going from one extreme to the other.

This is only the second superwash fiber I've worked with - the first was superwash Corriedale, and I'm a lot happier with this one. I think I overspun the singles for the Corrie - the finished yarn felt somewhat wirey - but this merino basically spun itself. Literally. I sat in front of the wheel and just let the fiber run out into the single with hardly any effort. The 4 oz took two nights to spin (+/- 3 hrs), which is fast for me. Plying was another evening. So if I have to give up the other four ounces, at least I know it won't take forever to get through*!

* As soon as my new tension knob arrives - there was a small Lendrum-child collision this morning apparently (I think I was in the shower) that did not end up well for the Lendrum. Very sad, but given the amount of Christmas knitting left to be done, probably just as well.

Dyeing with Devil and Boo

I've been doing some dyeing with the girls recently. The first attempt, with Devil, resulted in some lovely brightly colored Romney locks, which I got as a gift with my hand carders.

Violet, Scarlet, Turquoise and Sun Yellow - colors picked by Devil and dyed with no standards whatsoever (i.e. Devil dumped in a bunch of 1% stock into a jar until she liked the color and we put some locks in). These were microwaved for about 6 minutes each I believe. We rinsed them out in the big dye box, spun out the excess water in the washing machine, and hung them out to dry.

Now the question is what to do with them. They'll be good practice for the hand cards, but what sort of gawdawful yarn will these colors make? Yikes!

Our next project involved the turkey roaster. I had a little problem the last time I ordered dyes - somehow I found myself on the roving page at Dharma Trading Company, and ended up with a box containing 2 oz of dye and 2 lbs of wool. Hunh. So I'm looking at this massive pile of wool and wondering what the heck I'm going to do with it. And sitting next to the pile was the Fall issue of Interweave Knit, which contains the pattern for the Peacoat of Gloriousness (Rav link) that I am completely in love with. Not that I need a wool peacoat in Houston, but heck, next fall I will definitely want one. So my new spinning goal is to spin up enough yarn to make it.

The first yarn (worsted weight) is going to be from this wool, dyed purple. I think the variegation in the fiber will work well as yarn, but I'll probably have to sample* a bit before I commit to spinning up the whole mess. The second yarn (the pattern calls for two different yarns held doubled) I think is going to be merino/tencel, dyed violet, spun DK weight. At least that is the plan. Who knows what it will actually become.

This attempt was somewhat less successful in that there is now a large purple splotch on my driveway (thanks Boo!). We did these in the roaster and I ended up dyeing with twice as much dye as yarn (by weight). I had to add a bit more water to keep things from drying out too much. 3 hours at ~175 degrees and then left it to cool overnight.

This is a lot of purple fiber, people. I've got two balls of this stuff now, and they are approximately the size of 40 lb pumpkins. Much, much larger then my head. Maybe Devil and Boo's heads stuck together. In any event, I'm either going to need a ball winder or many more bobbins to spin all this stuff up. Anyone want to take bets on wether or not I can get it done by next summer so I can knit the damn coat before it gets cold?

* Oh no, a second dreaded "S" word!