Fiber Friday: TdF Yarns #4 and #6

Fiber: Hello Yarn Fiber Club January 2010, "Loch", 83% mohair/15% nylon/2% merino
Spun/plied: 12:1, short forward draw
Comments: I was a bit concerned about this colorway - the combo of blue and orange has never really appealed to me, regardless of what the colorwheel says should be true. I decided to split my first 4 oz bump into two color groups and spin them seperately. Here's what the fiber looked like originally.

I broke the top apart into blue/green chunks and orange/olive chunks. Each piece was stripped into 4 lengths and I tried to mix them up as much as possible in the spinning. Here is the first batch of finished singles before plying.

I spun this with a short forward worsted draw, and the singles ended up a bit thicker then my usual default yarn - the mohair seemed a bit clumpy, more like tencel then wool I think. But really fun to spin, and so smooth and drapey - I knew the finished yarn was going to be incredible.

Originally I was going to split the second four ounces down the middle and spin for matching chain-plied stripey socks. However. Once the first two skeins came out of their spa treatment, I started thinking that I needed to do the same with the second bump. So when the cyclists hit the Alpes, I was spinning away on another orange vs. blue situation.

Hooray Tommy!

I ended up with about 220 yds of blue and 150 yds of orange, approximately DK weight. Now I just have to find the right pattern for them!

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It's that time of year again

The end of the school year, that is. Last year, I went a bit nutty and made six scarves (in about three weeks) for the girls' teachers. This year, there are only three teachers, but I still need to get on the ball here. So today I took advantage of a trip to Islington to go to Loop. Here's what I ended up with: three skeins of Malabrigo sock in Cote d'Azure and Playa for Devil's teachers, and Aguas for Boo's teacher. Yummy!

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FF: Shaking Leaves

My resolution to make Tuesdays a spinning day/night seems to be working, for behold: my second finished yarn in the last month!

Fiber: Hello Yarn Fiber Club January 2011 offering, "Shaking Leaves" Finn top
Spun/plied: 9.25:1/7.5:1, chain plied
Final stats: 10-14 wpi (worsted/aran weight), 275 yds/~4 oz (~1100 ypp).

I love these colors (which are a bit greener then they're showing up on my monitor) - they remind me of the beach in Charmouth on the Jurassic Coast. I decided to spin this fiber up for a Baktus scarf (or a scarf with a similar construction), so I wanted to spin it in a way that would generate stripes of more-or-less the same width as the scarf was knit from end to end. I split the entire length of top in half, then split one half again, and spun it up as follows: 1/4 width, 1/2 width, 1/4 width. Then I chain plied the singles to keep the striping.

I've noticed of late that my spinning output seems to have shifted towards a lighter, loftier, less dense yarn, and this was no exception. I spun the singles with a short forward draw at 9.25:1, and chain plied at 7.5:1, trying not to overply. And I managed to end up with a yarn that came off the niddy noddy balanced (!) - I don't think that's ever happened before.

You can see in these photos how much less tightly plied this is then some previous chain plied yarns. Before washing I had 298 yds at 17-20 wpi. After a soak in cool water, the Finn Puffball Effect worked it's magic and I ended up with 275 yds at 10-14 wpi. Poof!

I still like the Baktus idea for this yarn. Maybe a lacy one. Or an extra lacy one. Anyone have a vote?

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Early onset

In graduate school, I studied Alzheimer's disease, albeit at a somewhat oblique angle. That is to say, I studied something else in the context of AD. In any event, I am somewhat familiar with some of the symptoms of dementia, including the loss of any ability to form new memories. And I think perhaps I am suffering from some of these symptoms, because somehow I completely managed to forget that I signed up for the IKnit London (not just) Sock Club.

And when I say forget, I don't mean that it just slipped my mind. I mean that I saw an announcement of a party for the start of the club and thought "I wonder if I can still sign up for that..." Imagine my surprise when I arrived home after a looooong day to find a package waiting for me on the doorstep, and it wasn't from Adrian, as I expected. This was what was inside:

A lovely little project bag and a skein of Gorgeous Crimson Yarn - perfect for May of Project Spectrum! Plus not one, but two patterns. One for a pair of socks (Tantalus) and one for a pair of glorious fingerless mitts called Ambience, both by Janie B. At the moment, I'm leaning towards the mitts, simply because I'm working on a pair of lacey red socks at the moment. Those socks are slowly moving along - I reknit the leg of the first one adding four stitches and going up half a needle size, and they fit much better now. I managed to get through the toe on sock #2, which will be joining me on a bit of a road trip this weekend, so I hope to get them done soon. After which point, I will never knit with Cascade Fixation Ever. Again.

gratuitous yarn shot

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FO: Boo's Elephants

My copy of Interweave Knits Summer 2011 arrived in its belated fashion last week (it goes through a corporate forwarding system from Houston), and as I paged through it the first time, I wasn't so impressed. But the girls were yelling at each other and the dog was chewing on a dirty sock, so I had to leave it and go deal with the chaos. And when I came back, I discovered in the very last section the perfect sweater for Boo, the future veterinarian.

A vest! With elephants! What could be better? So last Thursday I cast on, and today I've got this:

Pattern: Baby Elephant Vest by Melanie Rice, Interweave Knits Summer 2011
Yarn: Classic Elite Provence, 100% mercerized cotton, 205 yds/100 grams, 2 skeins in a lovely periwinkle that I picked up at the Yarns2Ewe Christmas sale many years ago.
Needles: US 5/3.75 mm and US 6/4.0 mm.
Gauge: ~5 stitches per inch in stockinette on larger needles
Start/finish: 12 May - 16 May 2011
Comments/mods: the modifications were many and huge with this sucker. To start off with, there was no way in hell I was going to get 6.25 stitches/inch with this yarn without making a bullet-proof, stand-up-by-itself sweater. So I threw gauge out the window (always a dangerous idea!), swatched a bit, found a fabric I liked, cast on for the smallest size (21" chest), and hoped for the best. I used the measurements for the Boo-sized sweater (27" chest) for the length to the underarm and the length of the armholes. That was the first major modification. Thankfully, the FO ended up at just about 27", so win-win.

Major modification #2: worked in the round instead of in pieces. I hate seaming, so I did this sucker in the round. I cast on the appropriate number of stitches with 2 extra (for seam stitches), and worked the garter stitch band back and forth. Then when I started the lace pattern I joined to work in the round. The two extra stitches (one on either side) were purled every row to make a nice side seam and to hide the jog that happens with garter stitch in the round.

Major modification #3 (which isn't actually so major): instead of casting off and seaming the shoulders, I kept the stitches live and used a three needle bind off to finish. Ta da! No seaming! Well, except for the bit at the hem and the neck band and armhole edges. But still, not too bad...