KnitMe

Silkmoths

Remember?

July 26, 2006
Munching poly cat.

July 23, 2007
A lovely lady hatches.

Her wingspan is almost four inches.

The next day she was joined by a male.
He's drying his wings.

That night in the wee hours she released her scent call. He answered.
In the morning she began laying her eggs on the side of the bucket.

The rounds of mating and egg-laying went on for three nights and three days.
She gifted the bucket with more than 200 eggs, her life's work.

On the fourth day there were no more eggs. Their work complete, the spent moths died.
I put away their white silk cocoons to card and spin.
When the eggs start hatching I'll hang the bucket in a mesh sleeve in my oak tree. The cycle will begin again.

It's been a trip.

You can read more about these remarkable moths and see some spectacular photos here.

WIPped out

I can see it coming. My two WIPs are both big long commitments. I can see myself in about a month, still working on the same two things, wondering when it will all end. Right now, though, things are ok. The 'Saffron Cables' afghan (should I call mine Raspberry Cables?) is still fun to knit, and is good for watching movies. I think I am about half done.

I have embarked on the famous Bee Fields shawl by Anne of Knitspot. I am using red Zephyr. It is a really interesting knit so far, I have done the 11-row setup and one complete repeat of the 20-row beehive chart. (This picture was taken when I had done about half the beehive chart.)

I love the edging that runs down the side - the ingenious little nupps at the edge and the fagotting that's built right in. The Zephyr is also nice to knit with, this is the first time I have used it. It has enough heft to it that I can feel it in my hand.

I started this on my Knitpicks needles because I love those pointy points, but I found very quickly that they were too slippery for me to keep control of the fiddly little beginning of a lace thing. I switched to Bryspuns - the points are sort of a pain at times but they don't try to get away from me at least. My only other alternative was Clover bamboos, which have even more rounded blunt points.

I plyed some more this weekend, I wanted to see the results of Jan's handiwork, which I showed you last week. I plyed my cashmere and her Colourmart 3/84 cashmere/silk together. This skein probably weighs half an ounce or so, and it's about 90 yards.

It's weightless and plush. I decided that I wanted more than anything not to underply it, so I put more twist in when plying than I thought advisable. The resulting hank twisted in the Z direction quite significantly, but when washed it straightened out to the point that it only went about half a turn in the Z direction. I remembered Judith McKenzie McCuin's advice in her new spinning book, that if a skein is balanced right off the niddynoddy it is probably underplyed, and I forged ahead, and I'm glad I did. Since I do tend to underply (except when I really overply), it will help me end up with better yarn.

I wanted to spin something I could do sort of rustic and thicker than some of what I've done lately, so I dug a bump of wool and alpaca out of the bottom of my spinning stash that I have been sitting on for about 2 years. I got it from the Barefoot Spinner (no website) at Maryland, I loved the silver and purple of it.

I am not loving the spinning of it, so much. Maybe when I see it in a hank of yarn I will love it. We'll see.

I did manage to finish one Hourglass Rib sock.

I love how these are turning out. And, when I added them as a WIP in my notebook at Ravelry (yes I've fallen into that rabbit hole too), I found out that other people were also knitting them! How fun is that?

See you on Ravelry. I am 'fiddletwist'.

Regularly scheduled programming

Thanks to Melanie's beautiful posting last week, I have a nice backlog of stuff to catch up on here.

I finished the 'Ylva' shell from Elsebeth Lavold's Second Viking Knits collection.

I am really happy with how it looks and fits. Her designs are always so simple and elegant. I shortened it about 2 inches, as I find she likes a longer length than I like, and I am very happy I did that. I also knitted this yarn at a tighter gauge than she recommends. I actually knitted it on size 3 needles at something like 6 spi, because I got a fabric that felt substantial enough to wear decently. As a result, it's probably not as light and airy as intended, but it doesn't sag or gap.

The label says this yarn is machine washable, so I turned it inside out and washed it in a mesh bag to block it. My conclusion is that I DON'T recommend machine washing this yarn. It shed. Not terribly, but enough that I had to brush off little fuzzy poofs when I laid it out. I am not sure what component of the yarn was shedding off, but I will handle it gently from now on.

I didn't find any errors in the pattern for the size I knitted (because I was going down significantly on the gauge I knitted the 38 inch size).

Casting about for what my next project will be, since I only have the afghan on the needles now, I swatched a bit. These are two swatches for the scalloped jacket on the cover of Lace Style.

The yarn on the left is Elann Sierra Aran (wool and alpaca), and the yarn on the right is something obscure and discontinued called 'Handsome Harry's Hanks' which I won in a contest on Wendy's blog a few years ago. The two swatches couldn't have been more different. The Elann yarn was soft and drapey with a little shine. The Harry's Hanks yarn is very lightweight, totally matte-finish, and no drape whatsoever. It's also a two-ply with a very bold twist. I decided it just didn't lend itself to this pattern although it would probably make a really great cardigan if I found the right pattern. The Sierra Aran would probably work very well in the pattern. I was about to start that when I fell down the Bee Shawl rabbithole. I will be starting that later this week, like approximately a million other knitters...

I also had thoughts, before the Bee shawl mugged me, of doing something with the tussah silk I spun last June. I swatched a little on size 4 needles.

I was getting about 6.5 stitches and 8 rows per inch, and the fabric was nice, it could also go to 7 spi I think without becoming stiff. I have about 1300 yards of it (14 ounces) and no idea what to do with it, although I have a couple of ideas. It wants to be a sweater with some drape. What do you think?

On the spinning front, I spun and plyed a pretty carded batt that I bought from Winderwood Farm on eBay. It is bluefaced leicester, merino, silk, and angora, I could not resist that combination.

I am not an expert in drumcarded batts, so I was surprised when I unrolled it to see the underside.

The outside was sort of magenta and wine, and I am sure it was the angora. The underneath side was purple and yellow, and I'm sure that was the merino and BFL. The silk was a smattering of strands of white throughout.

Spun up, it wasn't as soft as I expected, and I really really don't think I managed the colors well, although I am not sure what else I could have done. I stripped the batt lengthwise and spun it so that I would end up with about a DK weight 2 ply that was a bit lofty. It was easy and fun to spin, but I feel like the yarn I got is rather, well, ugly.

It is about 165 yards and 2.5 ounces, and I have no idea what to do with it. I tried to soften it and fuzz it a little by whacking it on the side of my house while it was wet, I am not sure that made any difference other than to leave some tufts of angora stuck to the bricks. Maybe it will end up a Dulaan hat next year or something. Sigh.

The most fun thing that happened is that - well, let me back up. Remember this? Six grams of fine-spun cashmere that became a hopeless tangle when I tried to ply them? Well, our own Jan saw a challenge in that photo. Both she and Sam love to untangle messes like that (I have no idea why) and she asked me to send her my lump of cashmere for a rescue attempt. I figured this was the kind of insanity that didn't harm others, so I indulged her. She sent me a little photo essay of her work.

What I got in the mail from her was:

containing

My cashmere (which turned out to be 94 yards - imagine that, 6 grams and 94 yards!), and some lovely silk/wool to ply with it. Wow! Thank you Jan!

Now to figure out how to ply off of a toilet paper roll!

Oh Gee!

I've started the Ogee lace shell from the Jaeger JM04 book. This one has been on my To Do list for a long time.

The yarn is Louet Gems Pearl fingering weight in the Eggplant colour. In the right light it seems to be showing off the lace nicely.

There are more stitches on the needle for the back of Ogee than there were for the entire Gothic Leaf stole, which is finished. Voila!

It only took 9 x 25 g. balls of Elann Peruvian Baby Silk, 80% baby alpaca, 20% silk on 3.75 mm needles. It is wonderfully soft and has lovely drape. The stole is knit in two pieces and grafted in the centre so that the ends are symmetrical. It can be knit all in one piece if you're not obsessive about symmetry. The finished size is 72" long by 23" wide. It could have been blocked longer, but my blocking board is 72" long, which works for me. That lets me block on the dining room table instead of on the floor. This was truly an enjoyable design to knit.

Here's he centre where the leaf stems meet and head back in the opposite direction.

In the perpetual sock on the needles department here is a pair of Retro Rib socks from Interweave Knits Winter 2004 (also in the Favorite Socks book). The yarn is a cotton/wool/nylon blend called Cotton Spirit, colour 3006 from Meilenweit.

The Blue Moon merino/tencel from my last post is all plied up. The colour is Puck's Mischief (what a great name!) and it makes me think of irises in bloom. I was hoping to get enough yardage to knit the Wing-of-the-Moth shawl but I've come up a bit short. At 17 w.p.i. it's a light fingering weight but there's only 725 yards in the skein, which weighs just over 8 ozs. I wonder if the tencel adds to the fibre density. Please jump in and add a comment if you can enlighten me on that score.

I bought a little Cormo fleece when Treenway got it's shipment of specialty fleeces from New Zealand last year. I combed it a few locks at a time last wnter and I have begun to spin it now - pictures and whinging about neps next time.

So, for fun spinning, I started this Blue Moon Sheep 2 Shoe superwash merino on the other wheel. I didn't quite get the top split evenly, so the resulting yarn may be, shall we say, interesting. I can't imagine how all these colours are going to come together.

I jumped on the Mystery Stole 3 bandwagon too. I'm not worried about not liking the finished shawl because I have never seen one of (the other) Melanie's designs that I didn't like. I was up late last night working on Clue #2. The yarn is Zephyr in the Indigo colour, with #8 hex cut beads on a 3.5 mm needle. Here it is at row 137.

To Kate, who left a comment on my last post regarding Sarah's wedding shawl: Thank you for your kind words. Sadly, I haven't written the pattern up. I honestly keep meaning to, but then with what little time I have to myself, I'd rather be knitting or spinning ... you know how it goes.

Ever eat a computer?

"Many parts are edible...." Remember those commercials? Well, if parts of this had been edible I would have eaten them.

Don't even ask. Up until June 11 this was my functioning computer. There will be another functioning computer at my house later this week, because this one could not be made to function again although some moron took it so far apart that the service manual I have doesn't explain how to reassemble some of those parts because nobody takes them apart. Don't even ask. However, I did manage to put it together again. It doesn't run, but it looks like a computer again and not a box of parts. I have redeemed the hard drive, so I am no longer hysterical.

Ahem. So. Knitting etc. It was plying weekend at my house. I finished the rainbow superwash merino for Emily's scarf.

It's three ply, about 120 grams, and what seems like a ton of yardage, over 300 yards. This is for a scarf for Emily. It didn't come out as nice as what Sam posted a few weeks ago, but I think it will give a pretty candy-colored effect she will like.

I also finally got through another skein of that Rambouillet that I dyed 4 colors in the fleece and am blending on combs. I have three big hanks now. I don't know what I will knit with it as I am not going to have enough yardage for a sweater and it's pretty fat yarn.

It would make a good hat and mitten set, I think, but I will probably have more than that. There is probably one more hank's worth left to comb and then we will see.

It is impossible to express the amount that these photos suck, but they are all I have to show my progress on the Ylva shell. I think it will be done by next weekend.

This is the front, one side is done and I'm nearly done the other side.

This is the back.

Neither shot really shows the color well. This appears to be a very difficult color to photograph.

I started another pair of socks also, this is the 'Hourglass Rib' pattern that I got from Lisa, and some Meilenweit Lana Grossa wool/cotton that is showing off the stitch pattern well.

This is the most extraordinarily clever pattern. If you look closely, you can see that the vertical ribs are made to curve in and out by alternately having garter stitch and ribbing between them - the garter stitch rows push them apart and the rib rows pull them in. I know that is a lousy explanation but if you squint at the photo for awhile you will see it.

Because I have an overabundance of feline beauty at my house now, I can give you another adorable kitten picture, this is Daphne having an afternoon nap.

Finally, last but not least: someone turned 6 yesterday. How about that??