KnitMe

Once In Love With Cormo...

I finished off the black merino, finally, the other day, after it occupied the wheel for 6 months.

It totals 15.5 ounces (half an ounce got lost in the shuffle) and about 845 yards. I can get less yardage out of a pound of fiber than anyone I know. I'm terrified of merino so I spin very high twist to keep it hanging together, then I get yarn that is dense dense dense. I haven't measured wraps per inch but it's looking like sport or light DK weight.

To refresh myself with something soothing and simple I went for my pound of white Cormo pencil roving, bought from the American Cormo Sheep Association at MS&W in the spring. If you went to a fiber dictionary and looked under "perfectly prepared," you'd see this:

It's clean, and white, and doesn't even need predrafting - I just pull off a yard and spin and spin and spin. If I can keep this up I'll have my first laceweight handspun. Or even 3 ply fingering if I get enough single. It is spinning so fine. And I switched to scotch tension. My last hank of merino suffered from my tinkering with my wheel setup in double drive - I got it operating much more smoothly than it ever has, but I couldn't get the takeup the way I wanted it, so we're trying another way. So far it seems to be working very well.

This Cormo is the most wonderful stuff. I was reading up on it online the other day, Cormo sheep result from a corriedale/merino cross. But to me it seems like what I'd get if I crossed shetland and merino and got the best of both - it's lofty and airy and springy like the shetland I've spun before, but silky like merino, and the fibers happily stick together in the spinning. I'm not sure what vendor actually sold this - the Cormo association booth was filled with things from association members - but it says 'AF' on the little tag which must indicate who it came from. I want more Cormo. I want combs so I can get Cormo fleece and comb it. I think I'm coming down with a disease here.

Here's the completed single Selbu mitten.

Oddly, I am finding I WANT to cast on and make the second one. So I probably will not need to attempt my strategy of making a single glove in order to make the second mitten seem easier.

The Mariner's Sweater

I finally got a picture of the recipient in the sweater last weekend. Ironically, the picture was taken in eastern Washington, which is pretty far from the sea. Oh well.

I have been in the habit of knitting things - sometimes sweaters, sometimes not - for very good friends who are having major birthdays. This was a 50th birthday present for the young man pictured, who is the husband of my dear friend Sybil and a buddy of my DH. I started it around the time of his 50th birthday, to be accurate, and he finally got it last spring when he had turned 52. He is a marine biologist, diver and sailor - hence the name, Mariner's Sweater. I was trying for a marine theme - you know - pilings, water, light filtered down to the diver.

Recognize it, anyone? The pattern is the Boat & Rope sweater from Alice Starmore's Sweaters for Men. I didn't do the cabled collar, though, as you can see, just a plain ribbed neck with some tubular rows at the end and a grafted bindoff.

The yarns: The dark color was Rowan's (long lamented) "Lambswool Tweed DK" in color Dark Ore, which is a very dark green. This is the color of the cables and also alternates in the background of the striped areas. The green, which is a little hard to see here, but is used in the darker stripes, is the same Lambswool Tweed DK in the Emerald color. The turquoise used in the brighter stripes is another wonderful, long-discontinued DK weight yarn, Jacques Fonty "Granit".

I truly love how this turned out, but it was slow going, as the combination of semi-garter stitch and slipped stitches really condenses the row gauge. Then there was the episode where I knit almost half of the back in the wrong color and had to rip out! There is another color of LTDK (Kohl) which looks a lot like Dark Ore when you are just reaching into a storage box in the yarn closet and not paying attention.

Katie

Comfort Food

If Siberian Winter and other such ornate lace is the dessert of knitting, then this is the macaroni and cheese:

Not that I need another WIP, but I ran across this yarn in some shelf cleaning and had to do something with it right away. It's 3 50g hanks of a yarn no longer made by Mostly Merino, it's 2 ply DK-ish weight and natural sheep white. It is so cushy and yummy, I decided I wanted to knit it into a fisherman rib scarf. First I started with 49 stitches. That was too many, I was using up yarn too fast. So I ripped and used 39 stitches. I got as far as you see in the photo and decided I was still using yarn too quickly, so after I took the picture I ripped again and am now using 33 stitches. We'll see. Meanwhile, knitting this scarf is definitely comfort food and I do it in the evening when I'm too grumpy to knit anything else.

(As an aside, I'd like to mention that I would LOVE to get hold of more of this yarn... it was given to me in a trade and is no longer available. Anyone have any they want to destash??)

I finished the hand part of my first Selbu mitten. I didn't make the ultimate pointy tip, I stopped one row short of total pointiness and grafted the 12 remaining stitches with the light color. You can see the peasant thumb waiting to be picked up and knit, although this picture was taken before I completed the tip. It now looks a lot more like the mitten in the book.

My fiendish plan is to finish this mitten, then knit one of a pair of gloves I want to knit this winter. Then, when I come back to knit the second mitten it won't seem like such drudgery. Right??

Saga Rose took the night off. Here it is, with one complete chart repeat finished and one entire skein of Dark Navy used up. I am now pretty sure I'll run out of that, but I want to wait to order more until I can tell if I'll be running out of anything else.

The colors in this design are just amazing, it makes a fabric that looks almost like velvet, and the way Malcombson uses the lighter navy makes some of the color changes look like they're tricks of lighting.

Girly Gansey

I've been leading a Gansey Group at my local Yarn Store (ThreadBear Fiber Arts - yay!). We're working through the sampler in Beth Brown Reinsel's fabulously detailed book, Knitting Ganseys. I've already done the sampler, so am working on a child-size model.

Here's a picture of the Channel Island cast-on (described in the book) and split garter welts:

and some seed-stitch initials inset in the "plain area":

and the start of the snakes and ladders:

We'll be doing arm gussets at our next meeting, so that's about as far as I need to get this month! It's good (for me) to have small goals.

A new tea party guest

Hi, all - I'm new here, but not new to knitting nor to blogging. I hope you don't mind if I bring along Little E, my now-6-month-old daughter and frequent knitting muse.

I've been knitting this for months - I am hoping to finish this baby-sized Fana in Baby Ull in time for Christmas pictures. Or at least before she outgrows it! The body is knit and ready to be steeked.

I just started a sleeve this weekend. Wish me luck!

Semi-finished

I am making progress on two small-yarn, small-needle projects and thought maybe it would spur me on if I "went public"! So here is Luskentyre, an Alice Starmore design from The Scottish Collection published many years ago by Tomato Factory Yarn Co.:

I bought this as a kit from Tomato Factory, also many years ago, and finally started it a year ago. It didn't really appeal during the summer, but now that fall is here I am ready to have it to wear!

Also on the needles is a Hanna Falkenberg design, Delta. I am quite nervous about this one, as it will have to S-T-R-E-T-CH out a lot sideways to fit around me (after washing). Yet, I did get gauge with a washed swatch, and am knitting the same number of ridges as the pattern states and as shown in the photograph. So I am trying to just have blind faith. After I finish this half of a sweater, I will wash it and block and we will see.

Katie

Breaking News

There's exciting news at the Pink Tea today. But first...

I ripped out and reknitted the Selbu mitten after getting some other knitters to look at the chart vs. the photo. They confirmed that if I continued following the directions I would not end up with the mitten in the photo. So, I ripped back. Here is the palm side of the mitten, you can sort of see the gusset for the thumb growing on the left hand side. It increases along the mitten edge, and just spreads out over the chart pattern on the palm edge.

And here is the back, still looking the same.

And here is Saga Rose, with the ribbing plus about 18 rows of body pattern done.

I'm worried that I will run out of Dark Navy, I have used one half of the first of 5 balls, and it just doesn't seem like I will make it. But we'll see. I know my gauge is not off, so maybe the pattern just estimated very tightly.

The News

But now for the exciting news. Sweatergirl has decided she can't maintain a solo blog and work and take care of a baby too. Imagine that. So, she's going to be joining the soiree at Pink Tea. I think that's great. Look for a post from her within a few days. Welcome, Tracy and Baby E!!

En Saga

Saga Rose is underway! Here is the completed ribbing, ready for the body chart to begin. Doesn't it look nice on my new fiber porch rug??

This is going to be another long project - not as huge as some of my prior colorwork sweaters, this one is only about 300 stitches around - but still, not quickly completed. I'm really liking the colors, the darker ones almost seem to have a shine. The pattern is in Jamieson's book #3.

The Selbu mitten has grown a bit, it's starting to look like something.

I didn't photograph the palm side because it has a disorganized look and doesn't exactly look like the book photo. I am following the chart and there are no errata at all for Folk Mittens on the Interweave site (which I find hard to believe! all books have errors!) so I'm going to push on and see what I get.

Unfortunately I had to make another one of these this weekend.

It's a chemo cap from the adorable Heather Spoll No Hair Day Collection - these are the easiest and best-fitting ones I found when searching for patterns last year.

It's for a neighbor who just got a diagnosis but hasn't progressed to setting up a course of treatment so I'm going to just hang onto it until I am sure she's going to need it. She's a much more stylish person than I am so maybe I'll try to put a little crocheted flower on the side of it. Any suggestions for an online place to find a tip on crocheting a flower? I've never done such a thing!

Here's some beautiful painted laceweight yarn I just bought from the eBay seller 'lotusblossom' - Over the Rainbow handpainted yarn. I've been waiting quite awhile for her to get more laceweight out there. Isn't it pretty? The colorway is called 'Lagoon.'

Of course I don't know yet what it'll want to be... it's 8 ounces and probably about 1900 yards. When I opened the package, Emily said, "Socks for me???" so of course I had to mail back to the seller and ask if she had plans to dye up a hank of sockweight in that color...

I have an unexpected holiday today, Emily's school is open but it is not possible for me to go to work because the entire data center and network is down for maintenance. Aw, shucks. So, among a huge list of things to clean and fix I hope to find some time for plying this.

This is the second batch of the black merino I began working on in late April. I can get less yardage out of a pound of fiber than anyone I know - I previously plyed up two hanks, and this will be two more, and there is only about a 2 ounce hunk of top left. I must spin too hard or something... Anyway I think it's coming out sport weight but who can tell for sure...

Return From Siberia

Siberian Winter is done and blocking.

These photos are pre-block, I will try to get a blocking photo of it in the morning before I pick it up - it is huge so it'll be a challenge to photograph, I think mine has blocked at nearly 5 feet square.

This is a detail of the center panel pattern.

This is a look at the border pattern and the edging together.

I had to try twice to get the final edging corner graft right. I did it once last night, and just wasn't satisfied at all. It was a big clunky edge and not lined up properly at all. So this morning I took my life in my hands and undid the grafting. I had a DP needle on hand and caught up each stitch as I released it from the graft, and I was able to reassemble the last knitted row without having to tink back. Luck was with me for once! Then, I used a very small DP to carefully pick up one loop of each of the stitches cast on to start the edging. Then the graft went together just fine and I was MUCH happier with the result.

Vital statistics: Started May 30th, finished today, size 4mm/6 needles and Lisa Souza's wool laceweight yarn in 'garnet'. There were at least 3 others on Fibertraditions knitting this shawl with garnet (I'm the 2nd one to finish), and one person knitted Flirty Ruffles with it. Yummy color. My favorite knitting sessions with it were the ones where I was drinking red wine at the same time - this is done just in time for fall weather to set in.

Other things afoot here: Now that it is my lunch hour knitting, the Dale 109 lace cardigan has two fronts:

It has been mostly not worked on since I started it on June 12th so it needs some attention. The yarn is Alpafina in cream, which is making a nice fabric. I am expecting it will relax a little in blocking so I'm not worried that these pieces seem a little narrow.

Emily's pair of navy blue socks is maybe 1/3 done - I've stopped the first sock after completing the heel and started the second one to be sure I use the yarn evenly on both in case it's not enough.

Making a sock this small is odd. I have 48 stitches of circumference and I'm knitting K2P2 ribbing throughout. I decided to use the heel that Nancy Bush calls 'Dutch' - where the heel is formed by having a small strip of stitches in the center that stay constant while the other stitches are decreased toward it until they are gone. There are lots of good descriptions to be found so I won't get more detailed than that. The bottom line is that on this sock I had a heel strip of 6 stitches, so when I finished turning the heel there were 6 heel stitches left. I had knitted a one inch heel flap so I picked up 10 stitches on each side for the gusset, leaving me 26 stitches total on the heel. What this meant was that I only had to work ONE gusset decrease to be back to my 24 stitches for the heel side of the sock. I guess that must be an occupational hazard of doing a Dutch heel on a child's sock?

Finally this is the center panel of my Faroese shawl out of the silk-from-hell. I have 40 rows done. This just isn't going to look like ANYTHING until it's blocked, so take it for what it's worth.

There's also a mitten on the needles but you can't see enough of the pattern yet to make it photo-worthy. It's the 'Selbu' mittens from Folk Mittens, in royal blue and cream anonymous worsted weight wool. I'm a little behind on Stephanie's mitten mania but I'll eventually have two mittens, really.

Finally - a shot of where our handknitted socks will soon be displayed. We're clog-wearing girls here.

Happy feet to all, and to all a good night!

Update In The Morning

I had to rearrange the furniture in the basement to have a spot wide enough to lay down my 6 feet of blocking surface. You may or may not be able to tell in the picture that there is a 'seam' in the blocking board that runs up where the left edge of the center pattern is. That is the edge of the four-foot righthand section of the board, which is a 4x6 sheet of styrofoam insulation covered with a blue and white plaid sheet. If you can see that, you can see how there's almost a foot of shawl extending to the left beyond that seam. The lefthand side of the board is made of two 2x4 remnants so that I could have a flexible size. I got the idea from Myrna Stahman's shawls and scarves book. One thing she omits though is how you get the cloth to stay stuck to the styrofoam! Staples don't work... I ended up with duct tape and I'm hoping it holds together at least somewhat.