KnitMe

Ply, ply again

Over the past week I caught up on all my plying. Here's what I plyed and the piles I added it to.

I plyed two of these three skeins. This is from a fleece I bought at MS&W in 2008. The ewe in question had a CVM father, and a Coopworth X BFL mother. It's heavily CVM-ish, with a lot of crimp and not much luster, surprisingly enough. And this is one of those fibers where the yarn turns out much better than you think it will while you are spinning it. It's poofy and soft and lightweight. I'm getting about 200 yards to 2.5 ounces, spinning it on the Prelude.

It really is that lovely french-vanilla color, too.

Then there is this ongoing pile. I plyed one or two of these.

This is from the fleece I bought at MS&W last year. It's half Romney, and the other half is a hodgepodge - Lincoln, Border Leicester, and Corriedale. I'm spinning it on the antique flax wheel, so the skeins are fairly small - 1.5 to 2 ounces.

It's making a really nice soft fine yarn with a lot of sheen, and it would make a good light cardigan or something along those lines.

Then I plyed my second skein of this.

This is, I believe, Ashland Bay merino/tussah, in a shade called 'rose quartz' that does not seem to be available anymore - if you know of any, please comment, as I'd love another 4-8 ounces (I only have a pound). This color is difficult to photograph, it either comes out too purple or too pink. I'm spinning this on my Philias Cadorette Canadian production wheel.

I have navajo plyed this because I wanted a worsted weight. It's fairly chubby - maybe 170 yards to 3.5 ounces. Not sure I will have enough to do much with it, but it's very soft and pretty.

I'm making yarn faster than I'm knitting it. This is the Bottoms-Up beret, from Nancy Marchant's brioche stitch website. Only used one skein of Malabrigo.

This was my first time using Malabrigo. I can certainly see why everyone is so crazy about it - it's like butter. I am not highly tempted to run out and buy 10 skeins of it, though - I don't think it would wear well and I'm hard on my sweaters. But yes, it was yummy.

And this is a pair of socks I made for Emmy, with some leftover Dream in Color Starry that Liz gave us (you may not be able to see the wisps of silver in the yarn) and Lisa Souza Sock toes. Darn, this girl has big feet now! No more little pairs of socks made out of a single 50 gram ball!

I cast on this weekend for some socks for myself, using Socks That Rock yarn for the first time (mediumweight in this case). It seems wildly overplyed to me - it's a nice firm yarn and I think it will wear well, but after knitting only about 5 rows of the toe I had to unwind the yarn, and I keep finding kinks of it in my hand as I knit. Weird.

Hats ahoy

Having gotten a haircut I now need to wear a completely different kind of hat, a poofy one that I can plop my hair into so that it won't be flattened by a watch cap or blown by the wind. So we're doing berets!

This is the Mystery Beret (or "Meret") pattern by Wooly Wormhead (you can find a million of 'em on Ravelry), knit in the Araucania Aysen that I had left from my February Lady cardigan. It's soft and poofy and comfortable, and I love the colors, and it got done really quickly. I did one full extra repeat of the 10-row pattern so that I'd get enough slouch.

I liked it so much I frogged a hat I'd made a couple of years ago out of Elsebeth Lavold Angora, and made a second one.

I knitted this on smaller needles (size 6) to get the angora yarn to hold its shape. I added the extra pattern repeat for extra slouch, and eliminated two plain-knit rows just before the beginning of the crown decreases so that I would not run out of yarn before I finished, and it worked out just right, and the fabric is firm and plush.