KnitMe

Stay tuned....Kitty Knits on Thursday!

A few things got finished this week, and a few more things are pending.

I finished the red wine and sugarplums socks.

They appear to fit perfectly, and the handspindled yarn is pretty cushy. Bluefaced leicester, yum.

I also finished plying my bazillion yards of camel and silk. This photo just doesn't do justice to the shine!

The skein on the left is 4.7 ounces, about 660 yards. The skein on the right is about 360 yards, I forget exactly what it weighs. This is seriously thin yarn. I have no idea what to do with it - it will have fabulous drape, but no body to speak of. I have another skein someplace that I spindled, I think the grist on it is a bit heavier. I am resisting washing this because I just don't want to spoil that shine!

I have to say, this was the most beautifully blended top. There was never a moment when I saw globs of camel go by, as can often happen with blends. It was a hostess gift from Melanie a couple of years ago from silkyarn.com.

I did manage to get that grey yarn back to balls of one strand, but it was agonizing and as I was doing it, I kept thinking, "Don't I hate this yarn? Why am I going to all this trouble??"

I tried Vicki's suggestion from last week's comments. The yarn would not cooperate. I tried just pulling it apart as the ball sat on the ball winder. The yarn would not cooperate. I finally wound the ball from the outside back onto the ball winder as the only way I could think of to remove twist. The problem (Outsmarting Myself, episode 6,330) was that the part of the ball that was on the center of the winder was the fold where I had twisted together opposite ends of the same skein. Can you envision that? Sorry if you can't... Anyway I needed a way to wind the two strands into balls while simultaneously taking out twist. Here is the mechanism I ended up with:

This is how it went: back up across the room for 6 feet or so. Twirl niddynoddy until twist is out. Wind each strand onto the niddynoddy.

This went very well until one of the balls started dropping off the niddynoddy...

Anyway, after significant headaches and wasted hours I have the yarn back. Whoopdie doo. Was it worth it? Don't know...

I have all the pieces of the kitty carpet bag put together. Here they are before felting.

The red square was made from the leftovers of my socks. After it's felted, you cut the shape of a butterfly out of it and stick it onto the bag for the cat to chase.

After felting, I'm ambivalent about the grey handspun. I thought shetland felted like mad but the grey didn't felt as well as I'd have liked. I'm thinking of lining this bag. Pictures of the finished product on Thursday, when

TA-DA

Donna Druchunas will be dropping by KnitMe to make a stop on her blog tour and talk about her Kitty Knits book, where you can find this carpet bag pattern and other knits for or about kitties. Please come back Thursday and see what Donna has to say about cats and knitting!

Meanwhile, the socks and bag were the only things on my needles, and they were both done! So I cast on TWO new projects last night! You'll have to wait till next Monday to see those...

Posted by Prudence at February 25, 2008 08:40 AM