Status report

OK, it's January 6th - where do things stand on the January projects?

Item the largest: Falkland spinning. Given the magnitude of this undertaking and the time frame, I've chosen to do a bit of sampling to make sure I get in the same ballpark as the orginal yarn. The sweater was knit in nine natural colors of Shetland 2000, a fingering weight Shetland wool yarn. 190 yds/50 grams, which works out to 1727 ypp. The gauge for the sweater is 32 stitches/32 rows per 4 inches (something has to be wrong with that row gauge, but whatever) on US 4/3.5 mm needles. It has taken me quite a while to figure out how you get 8 sts/inch with fingering weight on US 4 needles, and I've actually given up and moved on.

Sample #1: spun long draw, from top split into four chunks lengthwise, 15:1, plied at same ratio, finished with a soak in Soak and warm water. I knit a swatch with the suggested needle sizes (US 3/3.0 mm and US 4/3.5 mm) and then threw in US 2/2.75 as well. The swatch was then soaked in the same manner as the yarn, and I measured the gauge after it was dry.

Results: 17.5 yds/0.2 oz (7g) = 1326 ypp. Too heavy, although handspun tends to be denser then millspun, so maybe ok. Gauge with US 2/3/4 respectively: 7 sts/10 rows, 6.5 sts/9 rows and 6 sts/9 rows per inch. Hmmm...

Sample #2: spun from the fold, 15:1, short forward draw, drafting against twist. I didn't feel like I was getting very consistent singles with my long draw, so I tried something a bit different. Finsihed yarn as for #1. Swatched with US 1/2.25 mm and US 2/2.75 mm.

Results: 14.2 yds/0.176 oz (5 g), 1291 ypp - not surprisingly, the more worsted style of drafting gave me a denser yarn. Gauges: 7.5 sts/12 rows and 7.5 sts/11 rows respectively, but the swatch is a bit bulletproof. Which led to

Sample #3: spun from the fold on my highest ratio (17:1), but plied at 12:1. Drafting was more of a short forward draw, but I still tried to draft against twist. The singles were definitely finer - closer to 55-60 wpi then the 40 wpi I got with #2. Swatched with US 1 and 2 again.

Results: Wiktory! (I think) 12.75 yds/0.14 oz (4g), 1475 ypp. Gauges: just over 8 sts/6 rows and just under 8 sts/10 rows per inch. The swatch is still fairly soft and bares no resemblance to Kevlar. Or elica82's socks.

One thing I have learned is that this Falkland reacts like a puffball mushroom when it hits water - poooooof! I suspect that my gauge will loosen up a bit with the colorwork, so now I need to come to terms that I may be knitting an entire men's sweater on 2.75 mm needles. Thankfully, the chest size has gone down quite a bit from my first estimate, so I'm not worried about running out of fiber. My problem is going to be running out of time!

Ok, on to other projects:

Smaug socks - 5 repeats and a heel flap done as of 5 January 2011 (Tomorrow Never Dies gave me a good opportunity to get ahead).

And the IM Aran front: five repeats of the main cable done as of last night.

So tonight - throw the kids in bed by 7:30, knit 12 rows of cabled goodness and then spin, spin, spin.

Note: everyone reading who has not posted a comment on my list for 2011 better go do so: otherwise JoAnna will be getting a large package of wooly goodies all by her lonesome! I'm looking at all y'all down there in Houston (or in Switaly as the case may be), you and you in Chicago and you who are related to me (Mom!). It's really easy - just click on the comment button and tell me your goals for 2011, knitting or otherwise.

FO: The yarn that was supposed to be Tempest is now something else!

Pattern: Tappan Zee by Amy King
Yarn: Yarn School Corriedale Cross, ~675 yds.
Needles: US 5/3.75 mm bamboo circulars
Start/finish: 26 March - 26 April 2010
Gauge: 20 sts/32 rows in 4 inches
Comments/modifications: What a lovely and quick (despite my time line) knit! A top down circular yoke is not a sweater style I've knit before, but it was really fun. The lace pattern in the yoke keeps it from getting too monotonous, and the yarn colors helped with the monotany on the body. I made one major modification: instead of binding off the sleeve stitches when I got to them, I put them on holders. My thinking was that I wanted to put sleeves on when I was done with the body, and make them as long as the yarn held out. Once I was done with the body, I decided to keep the cap sleeves for the moment, so I bound off in knit from the wrong side. That way, in the fall when it starts getting cooler, I can pick out that bound off edge and knit the sleeves down.

I love the diamond detail at the bottom,

which matches the diamonds in the yoke.

Now for the yarn. I blogged about the spinning last spring/summer, but discovered when I started swatching, that the yarn need a bit of TLC. As you can see,

I was a wee bit tense when I did the plying. Perhaps I was a bit overplied myself, what with the move and all, but there is some serious skew in that stockinette. Add to that the fact that the yarn was not so pleasant to knit with (read: wiry, stiff and scratchy) and I decided that I needed to do something to take out some of the plying twist.

I took the three skeins I'd planned to use for the sweater (based on relatively similar grists) and ran them back through the wheel to take out some of the plying twist. I basically put the brake band on tightly, and re-plied the yarn with the wheel spinning in the same direction as when I spun the singles. I more or less let the yarn run onto the bobbin with only a little bit of tension, but if I came across a section that was really over-plied I held on a bit longer. Reskeined, rewashed, redried, and reswatched.

Much softer, much less noticeable bias, much more pleasant to work with. I've gotten a wee bit obsessed with grist recently, so I noted what these skeins came in at: 253 yds at 1094 ypp, 285 yds at 1140 ypp and 225 yds at 973 ypp. I started with the heaviest grist on the top, since the skein I have left for the arms is also around 975 ypp, and I wanted the lighter fluffier stuff in the body.

So all in all a great success. I desperately need to find the right buttons for it, but that may have to wait for a bit, since we've now entered The Month of Nonstop Houseguests. We currently have four parents and four girl children, aged five and under, in our house. As soon as the extra parents and children leave, we get an old friend from Tucson and his SO for a few days, and then a couple weeks later, Nana arrives. So forgive me if the blogging is a bit hit or miss for the next few weeks. Maybe I'll be able to get back here regularly when we finally have a functioning government!

The Knitting Olympics

You may have noticed a new, un-photographed project that has shown up in the sidebar over there to the right with an intriguing title. Because this is exactly what I need - a hole in the head. Or another project, in this case.

But, but, but...it's the Olympics! Today's the day! And Stephanie is on board again! How could I say no? For the previous Knitting Olympics in 2006, I knit my first lace shawl, Adamas (pre-Ravelry, as if such a thing were even comprehensible anymore!). I was not successful, but it was the first lace thing I'd ever done, and I got most of it done during the Olympics, so it was a good experience.

This year, I've decided to tackle a project that has been on my list for a long time - the Ivy League Vest. Here's why this is a challenge for me: I have a serious Fair Isle/colorwork planning block. The knitting of this will not be a problem, and I've done steeks once before, so that's not a huge deal, but I despise don't really care for the colors used in the original. And figuring out which colors look good together is not my strength. So I knew that I wanted to do different colors, but it was a huge inertia block for me to actually do the work to figure out how to change them.

Enter this week: Ironman has been in Australia for work, so I've had the freedom to play around with the bazillion colors of Knit Picks Palette I bought for this exact project, and make teeny swatches with lots of ends hanging off of them. Here's the first, knit on the recommended size 4/3.5 mm needles:

Final gauge: 6 stitches/inch, so those needles won't work. More importantly, the combination of Eggplant, Clematis Heather, Fog, Mist, Bittersweet Heather and Hyacinth won't do. Next:

This swatch was knit on US 2/2.75 needles using Ash, Clematis Heather, Mist, Fog, Lipstick and Cream. Stitch gauge, 7 stitches per inch, color combo, ick.

At this point, it was 11:30 on Sunday night, and it was well past time for bed. Except that I went to bed and lay there for an hour obsessing about colors and what should go where, and so on. Silly Porpoise. Since IM was away, I found myself downstairs at 1:00 in the morning scanning black and white images of different colors of Palette. Because I seem to remember reading somewhere that an important issue in colorwork is contrast. And if you're substituting colors, it will come out better if you get similar contrast values between your substitutions and the originals. These contrast values are easiest to see in B&W.

I also realized that the pattern uses two colors in each of three families: white, tan/brown and green. Green was out, and I'm not so taken with the tan/brown option. Whites, fine. Tan/brown became greys and green became either purple or blue.

The grays down the left side will be ok, but the navy was too dark.

This was better.

This one had the same contrasts as #2, but with a purple heather instead of the blue. So then it was time to swatch. By the time I finally went to bed on Sunday night/Monday morning, I had half of this done:

The observant among you may realize that this is none of the combinations that I meticulously scanned. I decided to try a purple version (with Huckleberry Heather and Iris Heather) and a blue version (with Pool and Blue Note heather). This swatch was also done on US 2/2.75 mm needles, but my final gauge came out at 8 stitches per inch, so I think I'll be going with a US 3/3.25 mm needle.

I like these combinations much better then the ones I first started with. So the B&W option was very helpful in narrowing things down. I've got my needles ready to go - some lovely bamboo circulars* - and I will be casting on as soon as the girls go to bed tonight** with these yarns.

Clockwise from lower left: iris heather, clematis heather, marble heather, mist, fog (now called silver apparently) and asphalt heather in the center. There's got to be a little bit of mystery in this, right?

Citius, Alitius, Fortius!

*  I'm hoping to be able to get this project on to the plane for our trip on Monday - that's three hours knitting time right there.
** I realize this is not kosher. However...the Opening Ceremonies will be starting at something like 1:00 am Saturday for me. That's the loss of an entire, unencumbered evening's worth of ribbing. And given that we leave at 8:30 Monday morning for seven days half-term holiday in North Africa, I feel that missing out on this chunk of time will doom me from the beginning. So...I will aim to finish by the same time minus half an hour on the 28th (the Closing Ceremonies start 30 min earlier then the Opening Ceremonies).

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 (!).

It must be autumn

Because people are wearing sweaters now, and it's not doing good things for my startitis.

Devil and I went to the story hour at our local library today, and I don't remember what we heard because I was so taken with two sweaters there. The first was a heathery pink number on an adorable little girl who was probably 20 months old. It was a standard yoked cardigan, with one button at the very top, seed stitch hems/neck/front bands, and a bunch of eyelet rows in the yoke to give it a bit of interest. I scrounged in my bag for a pen and a receipt and made a quick sketch, probably scaring the crap out of my neighboring caretaker. Turns out that this looks like the exact pattern*, so I won't have to reinvent the wheel. Score!

The other sweater was a grown up one - another cardigan with seed stitch accents, but this one had two buttons, patch pockets on the front, a shirt collar and was knit up in a drapey chocolate brown yarn that looked incredible. I immediately thought of this yarn,

which my mother found somewhere in Maine and sent me several years ago. I've got a whole bunch of it, so when I start swatching this evening, I might whip up some of that and see how it goes. It feels pretty crunchy in the skein, but I'll do up a couple of swatches and abuse them in inventive ways.

Maybe when I go back to work I'll stop with the crazy designing inspiration. I can only hope, because otherwise it's going to put a huge dent on my ability to concentrate on other things!

* I don't think I've mentioned recently that Ravelry kicks arse. Took a millisecond to find this pattern.