KnitMe

Memo re: child socks

My first hank of cashmere/merino is finished and plyed. I'm delighted with it.

First off, this is how it came off the bobbin. I'm getting better at creating something both balanced and sufficiently plyed!

The skein weighs 2.7 or 2.8 ounces. When washed, it poofed, as one might expect, and it has a great deal of elasticity. It measured 420 meters on the niddynoddy but my past experience with the poof factor tells me that I probably have about 420 yards here. I think I have something I could knit lace with!! Given the poof factor, I think its weight is a very light fingering or a generous lace. It is VERY soft and lofty too.

I didn't get to do much spinning this weekend, with all the running around we did. My task now will be to spin the remaining 5 ounces to the same grist so that I will actually have 1000 yards or so of this. I may overdye it a medium shade of rose - while it's a very appealing maple-walnut color, I'm not sure I want to wear, it although I haven't entirely made up my mind.

Inspiration struck last week when I was faced with the fact that Emily's feet are more than an inch longer than they were last year and have outgrown all the handknit socks I thought would fit her this year. These things are knitted top-down, so why couldn't I pull out the toes and make them longer?? At this age, her growing is all lengthwise and not much widthwise, so it's an ideal time to try this approach.

First I turned to the skyblue-pink socks that match the pair I just finished for myself. Now, this is not superwash yarn, so my hare-brained scheme became more complex when I saw how Emmy's sweaty little feet had FELTED the soles and toes (making them even shorter than they started out to be). My best bet ended up being running a needle into the row after the completion of the gusset, then cutting off the original toes and knitting a new foot. It turned out to be a pretty good idea after all, despite the trial-and-error of actually getting the stitches in a single row instead of stitches from the adjacent rows. And that little felted heel will be extremely durable, too.

You can see quite clearly where the new knitting is in the photo, because the colors get more defined and you can see the stitches. This pair is now redone and I have finished putting a longer toe on half of another pair (this one is superwash yarn so does not present the challenge of locating teeny stitches in a slightly felted fabric). How great is this? Emily will have three pairs of handknit socks in her drawer this winter instead of just one.

Memo to self: when knitting socks for small feet, use superwash yarn and never go toe-up!

It's So Easy Being Green (and garnet and purple and blue and...)

On the short list of fiber things that make me happy, spinning Lisa Souza's blue faced leicester is right near the top. I have this thing about screaming green, and Lisa, as ever, is very accommodating. She came up with "Spring Green," and I was sunk.

I spun it up to what wrapped as a DK weight, and started knitting. I wasn't that pleased with the initial result (too sloppy), so I ripped it out and tried again on smaller needles. It seems happier as a sport weight, and here is the beginning of the Raglan Body Hugger from The Purl Stitch:

I'm not sure yet whether this is the front or the back, as both are knit the same, but I'm nearly done with the second piece. I tend to spin serendipitously, and as such, ended up with some fairly long color runs in the finished yarn. In order to avoid pooling, I'm knitting off of three balls at once. I'm very happy with the way this is turning out. As the yarn is knitting to a finer gauge than planned, I'm making the next size up. So far, so good. In addition to being wonderful to spin, Lisa's biffle is a joy to knit.

I'm also working on Sidna Farley's 'Arches' pattern in Cotton Fleece (Candy Apple):

This is also a nice yarn; there's enough wool to keep it from being too hard on my hands, and it isn't terribly splitty for a plied cotton. This photo is a bit dark, but it closely captures the true richness of the color. This pattern was originally published in a booklet called "American Favorites, Knit Across America No. 6," put out by the Brown Sheep Company, and is still available as a single pattern leaflet from http://woobeeknitshopyarn.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/page321.html, titled "Lace Arches." This is the same beautiful sweater that Prudence blogged about in the not too distant past. As Miz F has already discussed the interesting construction details, I'll stick to showing my progress to date and my yarn choice.

In the "Goofing Around with Socks" category, I found this:

at my local yarn store. Who'da thunk it would do this:

The trick, of course, will be to get the second sock to do the same thing.

In other spinning, I've recently finished Crosspatch Creations "Moody Blues," a combination of three different CVM fleeces and some colored silk noil thrown in for good measure.

I wish you could feel this; it's so soft and springy, and photos don't do justice to the lovely variations of dusky blues. Four ounces gave me about 425 yards. Ideas for what to do with it?

Finally, I've been spinning a fiber called simply, "Soft Wool."

Mmmmm.... My friend Jen was kind enough to hunt down this favorite vendor for me at Black Sheep Gathering this year. I've spun this fiber before, but never knew what blend of wool it is. Jen found out that it's largely targhee, another of my favorite breeds. The color variations in this pale, tonal green skein don't show up well, but I'm hopeful that once I start knitting with it, they'll be more obvious to the camera. I've got a few designs percolating in my brain; we'll see how it all pans out!

A bunch of stuff

Yesterday was photography day, so if there's something you've been waiting to see, it's probably here today.

I brought the dyed/combed rambouillet fiber upstairs into the light, and spindled a sample too. This is a very crimpy fiber, so I probably should have used a heavier spindle. I did it quickly and casually, but it still should not have changed length and width as dramatically as it did. Wound on my niddynoddy it looked about DK weight. Removed from the niddy, it shrank about 4 inches in skein circumference and poofed out to an airy aran weight.

While the earlier photos were a little dark, this one is a little light, but it gives a good idea of the sort of plummy color I got. I think it'll come out nice, and I won't take the time to dye more of the contrast colors unless I run out. I wonder if spinning it finer, on the wheel, will counteract its poofing tendencies a bit.

I finished a bobbin of my cashmere/merino, but since it's very fine and a little sticky I decided to let it marinate overnight before winding it off to ply. I can't wait to see what it looks like as yarn.

I also finished one of the New England Mardi Gras socks. Emily found it totally hilarious that I was sitting on the couch sticking my foot in the air and taking a picture of it.

The sunlight washes out the color a little, last week's photo is more color-true. It turned out great. And my mind is at ease about the yardage. The sock weighs about 37 grams so I didn't use half the yarn.

I'm past the armholes on the back of my Cutaway cardigan. This Emerald bluefaced leicester is so hard to photograph. I tinkered and tinkered and it still looks too blue. Imagine these photos with the dark green more predominant.

A week ago I ripped back to the top of the ribbing and switched from my Inox Express needle to the Bryspun that I'd used to make my gauge swatch. The difference in tension is amazing. I adore the Inox Express needles but I think in this case the slipperiness was causing my gauge to become too large. I'm now getting the gauge I need for the pattern, and also making a lovely fabric, firm but also lightweight and drapey. Yummy!

I'm a couple of inches up the second sleeve for Emmy's Cat sweater. The body and one sleeve are finished.

Because of the very puckery nature of this yarn, I think I'm going to block the pieces before I sew and cut for the armholes. I want to be sure I know the true width of the sleeves before I decide how deep to cut. There's nothing worse than a sweater that pinches you under the arms.

Someone is hoping this will be done soon.

Here's a picture of what was going on at our house on Friday evening. I had absolutely nothing to do with this, she went and got her big bear and set him up at the piano, announced, "We're setting up now, thank you," pulled up her chair, and pretended to tune. This may be the only time I get to see my child play the violin...

We went to a little house concert Saturday and so now I can't stop singing, "He goes wa-wa-wa-waltzing, Waltzing with bears, Raggy bears, shaggy bears, baggy bears too..." Have yourself a little waltz this week, and happy thanksgiving if you celebrate it.

Small Things

I have been knitting small things lately while waiting for the processor to return the last bit of my Perendale fleece. Yet another Flower Basket shawl. this one is knit with Frog Tree Alpaca sport weight, and is scarf sized to wear with a coat.

A pair of conservative socks to wear to work. The pattern is from the Fall/Winter 1983 Vogue Knitting (yes, 1983!) and is one of my favourites.

And a lavender sachet knit with Koigu from a pattern by the talented Vicki Sever of Heartland Knits. I see more of these in my future.

Finally, I leave you with a picture of fibery goodness.

For my birthday, Rod got me a Little Gem, easier to travel with than my beloved Rose. In the basket is hand dyed superfine merino from Lisa Souza, who does magical things with colour. Also from Lisa are three skeins of Sock! in Mahogany (already wound up), Wild Things and Pacific. Snuggled between the sock yarns is a skein of gorgeous Shoalwater Bay nature dyed cotton/rayon slub from Kim, and some Lana Gatto Alpaca from Sam in a perfect colour for me. On the wheel is a lovely alpaca/silk blend from Angela. It's so soft. Spoiled, I am, and blessed with wonderful family and friends.

Dyepot Adventure

I did play in the dyepot on Friday. I also discovered that when you have pots of fiber simmering on the stove all day long, your house gets really warm. It was good for my sinuses. The result, from a finished-product point of view is in my opinion mixed.

I started with this. About 18 ounces of white rambouillet fleece that had already been scoured.

I have two pots now, this was my setup.

The one on the right is a speckleware roaster I ran across at the thrift shop for $4. It was so long that it had to have two flames under it. Oddly, it didn't hold an appreciably larger amount of fiber than the old soup pot, maybe because it's shallow.

My plan was to dye about half the fleece burgundy, and divide the remaining half between violet, sky blue, and woodrose (these are Cushing acid dye color names).

In a panic about how long it was going to take to do this if I had to let every color cool in the pot before rinsing, I appealed to my fiber list, and Lisa suggested dumping out the fiber to cool in something else. Fortunately I had a large strainer that came with the soup pot, that filled the bill. It also enabled me to carry the damp fleece to the washing machine (after it had dripped itself out), and rinse and spin it out there, so it would dry faster.

I discovered that with the violet, the blue was left in the bath after the fleece had taken up as much color as it could. The water was quite blue when I finally gave up and poured it out. I suppose that means I used too much dye powder for the amount of fleece I had.

Even before I started trying to test this stuff out, I decided I'd made a little too much burgundy, and also that this shade of burgundy was too brown. If I were doing it again I'd try for something more purply, more of a cranberry shade. Oh well.

I couldn't resist taking a shot at combing some up.

Yes I terribly overloaded my comb. But I put on the burgundy first and had to balance it as well as I could!

I made only 2 passes with the 5 pitch combs, because this fiber was very clean and because I didn't want to overblend the colors.

Not too much waste.

This is unfortunately not a very good picture, I will try to get one in natural light later in the week. Looking at the result, I think I'm going to have to find some more white rambouillet in my stash and dye more of the 3 contrast colors. It isn't exactly mud but there isn't as much of the contrasts as I would like to see. I did another lump later on that was a bit better with balance.

The top came out very dense and soft. I was intending that by combing after dyeing, I would end up with something that would draft well, and I think that will be the case. An interesting experiment!

I tink, therefore I am

I'm sure I'm not the first knit blogger to use that little cliche - if you know any others who have, mention them in the comments!

Anyhow. Hello, and welcome to the 200th Pink Tea entry.

Yesterday was a veritable tinkfest on my "New England" sock. It looks innocent enough.

However, apparently I cannot follow a chart and play Mickey Mouse Yahtzee at the same time, because twice yesterday I found myself having to tink or frog back half a dozen rows because I'd made some dumb error. Emily, who is obviously experienced with such events in her household, was sitting in the bathtub last night, while I was whining and tinking, saying, "Mommy hates to go backwards! Mommy hates to go backwards!"

At least when the day was over I had gone forward a few rows.

In the morning I spun some of my cashmere/merino.

I'm spinning it as fine as I dare. It's a wee bit neppy, so I pick out some, and others I just leave in there figuring it'll make for an "interesting" knitted fabric someday. I'm thinking I will overdye it once the yarn is finished.

At the end of last week I wound yarn and cast on for my Cutaway cardigan with my emerald bluefaced leicester. Is this ever pleasant to knit with!

I am knitting from two balls, and I decided to work the fatter hank into the ribbing. I think it worked ok and I'll probably do all ribbed sections the same way, to be sure I have the yardage to finish.

Friday is my second special bonus holiday, and I'm plotting the idea of dying some uncombed Rambouillet fleece in a few complementary colors and making myself some colorblended top with my combs. So I hope I'll have some fun dyepot pictures next Monday. Meanwhile, tink before you speak!

Boo