Break

In the face of a really bad news week, I'm taking a few days to do some comfort knitting and hug my family close. There will be more fibery goodness soon, I promise. 

Like what I'm doing with this glorious skein of gorgeous-ness. 

"Mind the Gap" sport weight yarn from Trailing Clouds

Seeing improvement

I noticed something during my whirlwind Christmas weaving frenzy that really brought home how quickly spinning can improve in a short period of time. Take a look at these two scarves.

Notice anything about them that strikes you, from a spinning perspective?

Let me clarify a bit. Both scarves are woven from SW merino handspun - the first is from fiber that I dyed at Yarn School in 2008, so about a year and a half after I started spinning. I spun it up in December of 2008, and ended up with 185 yds/4 oz of 14 wpi 2-ply yarn (approximately fingering weight). As I said in that post, this is some seriously dense yarn (740 ypp). I also made the comment that I was much happier with this SW spinning experience, as it was a lot less overspun then my previous attempt at a superwash fiber.

The second scarf is also woven from SW merino, this batch from Hello Yarn in the colorway "Peat" (March 2009 Fiber Club). This arrived right before we packed everything up to move to the UK, and might have been the first yarn I spun after we moved. I ended up with 200 yds/4 oz, about 12 wpi, a true 3-ply, coming in at 800 ypp. I loved this yarn so much I hoarded it away until the perfect pattern came along. Strangely enough, the perfect pattern was no pattern at all - just simple warp faced weaving with some brown sock yarn for weft.

After I washed the two scarves and let them dry, I noticed some really striking differences in the feel of the fabric. Note: they were both woven at the same epi and same ppi. But the blue scarf is much stiffer and has a less consistent fabric surface then the brown scarf (which I think you can see in the above pictures). Here's a few more to emphasize:

It's really obvious if you look at the fringe.

Although I may have felt (with my vast experience of 1.5 yrs spinning time) that the Yarn School SW Merino was an improvement in terms of overspinning, it's clear that another 6 months of spinning (and a sweater lot in the middle there) made a huge difference in the quality of the yarn I was making. The brown yarn was much more flexible and pliable, and the resulting fabric was super cozy. The blue yarn ended up making a fabric that, while still lovely, was quite a bit stiffer and crunchier.

Suffice to say that it was desperately hard to let the Peat Scarf go off to it's new home, but it's one of the few times I've finished something and thought: this has to go to Person X. I hope he appreciates it!!! I know the other recipient appreciates his...

Amor Deliria Nervosa

Last year, I designed a hat pattern for Storied Yarn's A Yarn and A Tale yarn and book club. The book that inspired my hat was "Delirium" by Lauren Oliver, a dystopian young adult novel about a world in which love is a disease. The yarn that Jess sent me for the design was her fabulous bouncy, springy Bo Peep Worsted (100% merino, 250 yds/4 oz) in the colorway "Waiting for Something to Happen", a grey with pops of purple, red, yellow and blue.

When it came time to release the pattern to the world, I decided to knit up another hat in a more solid colorway, and I chose LOMOND Aran (183 yds/100 gr) from Kettle Yarn Co in the gloriously cheerful and bright "Ginger".

This yarn is an alpaca/merino/bamboo blend, and is crazy warm and cozy. Despite one version being knit in worsted and one in aran weight yarn, the gauge is the same - I think because the Bo Peep Worsted is so bouncy and full, it behaves like a slightly heavier weight yarn.

I was showing the Ginger hat to Alli last October, and she said "You know, you should really do some mittens too..." Since I always do what Alli tells me to, the next thing I knew, I'd gotten another skein of LOMOND Aran from Linda, and pulled out the leftovers from the grey hat. Then there were mittens,

and cuffs to go with the hats.

Both patterns are now available on Ravelry, and soon here on the Patterns page. If you buy one pattern, you can get 25% off the purchase of the accompanying pattern - purchase at any time, no coupon code needed.

Details and specs:

Amor Deliria (hat):
Sizes: adult small (medium, large), to fit head circumference of up to 18 (20, 22) in/46 (51, 56) cm.
Needles: US 7/4.5 mm and US 8/4.5mm, or size needed to get gauge.
Yarn: requires approximately 140 (160, 183) yds/128 (146, 165) m aran or worsted weight yarn.
Gauge: 17 sts/22 rows over 4 in/10 cm in lace pattern on larger needles. Note: these measurements are after blocking.
Price: $5.50

Deliria Nervosa (cuffs/mittens):
Sizes: S/M (M/L) for cuffs, for wrist circumference of approximately 6 (7.25) in/15.25 (18.5) cm, unstretched. Small (medium, large) for mittens, with final hand circumference of approximately 8 (8.75, 9.5) in/20.25 (22.25, 24.25) cm.
Needles: US 5/3.75 mm and US 8/5.0 mm, or size needed to get gauge
Yarn: cuffs require approximately 60 (70) yds/55 (64) m; mittens require approximately 124 (160,1 80) yds/114 (146, 165) m aran or worsted weight yarn.
Gauge: cuffs: 19 sts/27 rows over 4 in/10 cm in lace pattern on larger needles; mittens: 21 sts/26 rows per 4 in/10 cm in lace pattern. Note: these measurements are after blocking.
Price: $6.50 (pattern includes both cuffs and mittens)

Both patterns include multiple charts.

And just FYI, there is an update schedule over at Kettle Yarn Co for Sunday evening at 5 pm London (UK) time, and it will include LOMOND Aran, so grab some! (She's got a glorious teal blue BANFF Aran available now if you can't wait...) Storied Yarns also has Bo Peep worsted available right now in a some gorgeous solidish colors and a variegated that would look fab in these patterns. Even better, you can get a hat and a pair of cuffs out of one skein!

Right, I think I've done my duty in keeping you all cozy for this month, time to get back to working on next month's pattern!

Building momentum and the next project

Usually I end up doing a series of posts that recap the Christmas knitting, but this year I'm feeling fairly blergh about that, so I'm going to move onward. Maybe I'll use them as filler over the next few weeks, but I'm much more excited about some other ongoing things.

I've been working alot recently on a shawl of my own design that grew out of the P3 retreat in October 2012. I first did a version in some lovely DK weight purple yarn that was in my goody bag, but after finishing that off I decided it needed to be a) bigger, and b) in laceweight. That particular bout of madness led me to a skein of Gleem Lace from Fyberspates, purchased at Unravel last February, and has landed me here, approximately ten months later, finally at the edging of this particular piece.

Some design projects fly off the needles. Some move in fits and starts, but make steady progress. This is/was a project that has been like pulling teeth without the benefit of anesthetic. I feel like I've been working on the body of this shawl forever, without any end in sight. It's more then a little demoralizing.

But today, o today! Today I finished the body of the shawl, and started the edging. And all of a sudden the inertia has shifted from molasses trying to flow uphill in the Northeastern United States right now (with some ridiculous polar vortex freezing the bejeebers out of everyone) to water flowing down the Thames at ebb tide. The 500+ stitches are flying along, and I'm optimistic that it's going to be off the needles very, very soon. I'm beyond thrilled. I can't show you any pictures yet, but it's going to be glorious.

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I'm also at a very dangerous point for any knitter - the end of a project is a weak spot, an opportunity for the knitter to suddenly resemble a frantic magpie, bobbing and weaving and investigating every shiny thing that comes along. I've been distracted by four skeins of Sweet Georgia Yarns Merino Silk Fine in "Mist". I've got enough for a sweater for ME!!!!!, and a deadline of this year's Unravel to finish it. But I'm having a lot of trouble deciding on what sweater to make, and here's where you come in.

Here are the current candidates (left to right, top to bottom): Vitamin D by Heidi Kirrmaier, Smaragd by Svetlana Volkova, Myrtle Cardigan by Snowden Becker, Mendel by Carol Fellers, Leaving by Anne Hanson, Juno by yellowcosmo, Honeybee Cardigan by Laura Chau (I'd do the full length version, not cropped), Audrey in Unst by Gudrun Johnston, Afterlight by Amy Herzog, Abigail by Cecily Glowik MacDonald, Brigitte by Jennifer Wood, Cushman by Amy Herzog, Isabelle by Jennifer Wood, Atelier by Heidi Kirrmaier, Vitamin D again.

Clearly I'm leaning towards a cardigan, but a good friend of mine made Mendel and it is absolutely gorgeous in real life. The twisted stitches in Isabelle make me weak in the knees, but I'm a bit concerned about how long they might take. I have the pattern for the Honeybee Cardigan and Leaving already, but I am completely incapable of making a decision. Help? Please?...

Looking forward

It's always a bit of a struggle getting back to blogging when I've been away for a while. I don't know where to start, or what to focus on, or what direction to take. But what with the beginning of 2014, I've been thinking about what I want to accomplish over the course of the next 12 months, in my own knitting and with designing.

I listen to the Knitmore Girls podcast fairly regularly (if not always in a truly timely fashion), and one thing I like a lot is that they choose themes for the year instead of doing specific resolutions. It allows for focusing on one thing, but with the opportunity to find different ways to fulfill that goal. I like that a theme allows me to find new ways to address an issue, and perhaps will lead to new approaches or strategies that reach beyond the knitting and spinning world in to the rest of my life.

I have a large number of designs that I've been thinking about or working on in one fashion or another for quite a while now. But I've been frustrated with my inability to bring any of those ideas to fruition, whether in a print magazine format or as self-published designs. It always takes so much longer to get things ready then I think it will, and I find it very easy to get distracted along the way. So things flounder, unfinished. So my theme for the year is going to be Consistency.

Initially, that is going to mean a more consistent design output - I've drawn up a schedule with at least one design coming out every month this year. Most are accessories, but there are a couple of bigger projects in there too. The first up will be this set, which I wanted to get out before Christmas - sadly, as it does, life (and technology screw ups) got in the way.

The last sticking point is getting the blankity-blank charts to show up correctly in the final pattern pdf. It will be available by Friday at the latest.

So that's my very vague and general plan for 2014 - consistency. Consistent design work, consistent forward progress, consistency. We'll see how it goes.

So what are your plans for the upcoming year?