KnitMe

My work here is finished....

...I got a fleece from a registered Bluefaced Leicester. Her name is Charade and she's 2 years old, isn't she cute?

When I first got combs, the first thing I went searching for was BFL. What I discovered is that you can get almost any other kind of fleece easily via eBay or googling, but BFLs are hard to come by! Networking online eventually led me to Stonesthrow Farm in Vermont, and this came to me.

It's the whole fleece, 2 pounds after skirting, lovely curls about 5 inches long. When I start fooling with it I'll take more pictures, it was hard to get a good shot of the beautiful curly locks. This is one CLEAN fleece - the tips are so clean you have to look to figure out which end is which. This will be a beautiful thing to work with.

I need more time to process fleece and spin. Oh, and knit. Anyone have any to send me???

LisaS, do you hear the whooshing sound? You are doomed, woman, doomed.

Tangled Up In Blue

This shawl is the first thing I have knit from my own handspun. I started with dyed "Sherino" roving (Shetland x Merino cross) from Frene Creek Farm. I spun it long draw (or the closest I could come to long draw) and then did a 2-ply. It fulled somewhat on washing the plied yarn.

Once I finished the lighter blue yarn, I started knitting the Feather and Fan Triangle Shawl from Cheryl Oberle's book, Folk Shawls. It's knitted from the top down, which was perfect because I didn't know how far my yarn would go. There are extra increases across the back of the shoulders, which help it drape nicely. It has very long tails which are created by increasing on each edge on every row for the last third of the shawl. This a traditional Icelandic shawl feature, as they often tied the tails behind them, but it does create some challenges for how to wear it, in my opinion. I do like the back shoulder shaping, though, as I find triangular shawls often do not drape nicely around the shoulders.

It became clear I didn't have enough to finish the shawl, so I ordered some more Sherino roving from Frene Creek Farm in a darker blue. I have to say this batch wasn't as nice and I had a hard time drafting it. It was full of little blobs of colored fleece loosely held together with more web-like roving. I wound up putting it through my drum carder to blend it together, and that improved it a lot, although it still didn't draft as nicely as the first batch I got from her, which was really easy to work with.

Then I just knit away on the lace edging with the darker color until I ran out of yarn! I had only a couple of feet left after binding it off.

Warning: if you decide to knit this pattern, make sure you get the errata sheet as regards "eyelet row 2"!

Here's how I am wearing it:
One tail wrapped around me and tucked into the waistband in back, the other tail flung over the shoulder. I think a shawl pin will keep it there!

and the back:

Katie

And just in time for summer, we have...

The Wrixlan jacket is finished.

Too bad it's going to be 80 degrees for the next couple of days...

I started this project on February 23rd and finished it two days ago. (Jamieson's book 1 and Jamieson's Soft Shetland in 'amethyst'.) Once you're past all those cable rows (4 repeats of a 16 row chart), it is quite an easy and fast knit. After finishing the cables, I was able to have it be my take-around knitting, so it got a lot of attention.

I altered the pattern in two ways. Instead of doing a series of bindoff rows for the shoulders, I shaped them with short rows and did a 3 needle bindoff at the top. Also, I picked up the sleeves from the armholes and knitted them down. When I finished, there was NO seaming to be done, just a bunch of ends to be hidden.

This was a perfect pattern for converting the sleeves, since it's a modified drop shoulder and the sleeves would have been bound off straight across the top if they'd been knitted from the bottom. I find that I often have a little trouble with sleeves that are bound off like that, when I go to sew them into the armholes, as the bindoff is so inelastic. Picking them up and knitting down is the perfect solution.

The only thing I can see that could have been better is if I'd actually bound off the 16 stitches held for the underarm, and picked up over them, instead of putting them on a holder. It creates a funny little gusset effect that probably would not have existed if I'd bound them off. Oh well live and learn. You can see the little gussety-ness under the right arm here.

It actually came out fitting quite well and is the size it's supposed to be. That wouldn't be cause for any kind of amazement if it hadn't turned out I used two full skeins less than the pattern called for. ??? I used the same needles the pattern called for, got my stitch gauge, and did not alter the length in any way, and I used 10 skeins instead of 12. I've never been able to get row gauge - if the pattern calls for 5 stitches and 7 rows per inch, I will find the needle that gets me 5 stitches but I'll invariably get more like 6 or 6.5 rows per inch. In this case I was much closer - more like 6.75. I don't know where that extra 240 yards of yarn was supposed to end up!!

With luck it will very speedily turn into some kind of felted bag to go with the sweater. I'd like to have a new tote in time for MS&W. This is probably unrealistic but I can try...

Bonus points if you can find the two cables that are twisted the wrong way in this photo of the back of the sweater, thus messing up the over/under sequence of the knotwork. Hint: they are not in the same 'column'.

Think you got it? Check here to see if you're right!

Time Marches On

I took a picture of Wrixlan last week, but I had to take another one this weekend because it's progressed so much.

Once you get past the cabled rows (64 altogether) it's a quick knit at 5 stitches to the inch. In keeping with all the bad influences I hang out with over at Fibertraditions, I deviated from the pattern! Shock and horror! This never happens! I shaped the shoulders with short rows so I could do the 3 needle bindoff to join, and I'm knitting the sleeves from the top down. If I can't do that on this pattern there's no hope for me at all - the sleeves are bound off straight across the top with no sleeve cap shaping. I had to figure out if I'd be ok with the decreases every 4th row even going top-down - my math suggests I will, only time will tell!

I tried to post a picture of the cables so you could try to spot the mistakes, but it was too dim and dreary to get a sharp shot in such a heathered yarn. I'll try again to give you the error challenge.

Meanwhile, when browsing for sari silk links to share with others, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to try my shawl again with yarn that's more in keeping with my very conservative tastes in yarn. So, I'm going to be giving the shawl I already made to Sam's daughter, and starting over.

This yarn is 'Kathmandu Handpicked' from here. It is extremely evenly spun and not hairy at all. It's also much more in my colors than the other one was. I'm really enjoying this yarn. I'm expecting to get a nice size triangle with 500 grams. To give you an idea how different it is from the old one - I could only knit that one at work because it shed so much, but I'm knitting this one while sitting on my beige couch.

I finally got my third ball of Silk Garden and finished my moebius, just in time for spring:

I've never made one of these before so it was an interesting moment when I went to put it on for the first time - but it worked out great, tucks nicely into the front of my coat. I do wish it covered the back of my neck instead of the front, but you can't have everything!

I tried photographing the beginning of my Silk Garden top-down cardigan but it didn't come out well due to the rainy weekend we had, so that'll be coming along later.

Meanwhile, check out the new blog arrival in the sidebar: LisaS of lisaknit has got herself into the blog world! Go see her cute puppy and her terrific spinning, dyeing, and knitting. Also, she's darn funny.