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.

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.

It actually turned out quite well despite all the gnashing of teeth and frogging of stitches.

It's a little longer than I might have chosen, but it's very soft and comfortable.

I whined at length last week about all the annoyances in the pattern, so I won't whine anymore. I did have the sense to shorten the sleeves and also to skip the increases that begin below the elbow. Sorry, I use my hands, so no bell sleeves down to my knuckles.

I used just over 5 1/2 skeins of the Berella Muskoka, which is a superwash merino. Instead of blocking it wet, I decided to spin it in the dryer, to be sure that the fabric snugged up, and it came out plump and cuddly.

I have been going great guns spinning on my Philias Cadorette wheel. I started some merino/tussah on Friday night at spin group, and finished the bobbin yesterday afternoon. I am hoping for a three-ply worsted weight, we'll see what I actually get...

The fiber is an Ashland Bay blend, and the colorway is called 'rose quartz' which is such a perfect name for the rose color, with the white silk and a little bit of blue running through it.

===========

Update to last week's story: Philias Cadorette died in 1946 at the age of 63. By then, CPWs were not being made and sold anymore, so I wonder what he did in his shop during the last 10 or 15 years of his life. His wife Aurore lived to be over 90, and died in 1976.

When I made my annual pilgrimage to WEBS after Christmas, I saw some Plymouth Baby Alpaca Worsted Glow that immediately said, "Emily!" to me. So she has a new helmet that is exactly what she wants, and very soft and warm.

The rest of my pilgrimage to WEBS yielded this.

Some Plymouth Baby Alpaca Worsted (no glow) in a nice saturated pink (I don't have much pink in my wardrobe), a bag of Tahki Sedona which is aran-weight wool and silk, because I really need something in this weight in my stash, and some Valley Yarns Florence in navy (this is being discontinued and I really like it so I grabbed some in navy at only $2.29 a ball). I was pretty good. There is a reason for that, as you'll see.

In the old-knitting department, I finished the socks I was working on. The pattern is "Eunice" from Cookie A's Sock Innovation book. I haven't actually worn these yet, I have been saving them to photograph, and I just like looking at them. I think they are gorgeous.

The yarn is the luxury sock blend from Neighborhood Fiber Company, in a gorgeous royal blue shade called "Georgetown". It has a little cashmere in it, but it feels extremely solid and firmly plyed, so I'm hoping they will wear well.

I knitted 4 repeats of the leg pattern, instead of 2, because I don't like short socks. I literally had about 6 feet of yarn left when I finished. The remaining yarn is what you see wrapped around the yarn tag in the photo. I knitted the leg ribbing on size 1 needles and then went down to size 0 for the legs, to get a firm fabric out of the delicate yarn and to get a good fit. When I go down a needle size I always end up burning through a lot of yarn to get the same length.

After I finished those, I was in a sort of a knitting slump. I had one thing on the needles, and it was driving me nuts. It's Cambridge Cables, from the winter issue of Twist Collective. It's a very attractive and clever design, but a couple of things about the pattern really caused me needless headaches.

First (and this caused me to knit the start of the neckline FOUR TIMES before I caught on) - if you see "K2T" in knitting instructions, what would you assume it meant?? I mean, based on the experience of your previous 100 years of knitting? Well, it doesn't mean that. It means to make a baby cable (1 over 1 twist). Once I figured that out, I got the raglan increases completed, but the cabled collar is a bit the worse for the wear I inflicted on it it as I picked up and knit, ripped back, picked up and knit... Grr.

The bustline short row shaping is quite clever but I had to knit it twice. I'm not sure if the pattern was obscure or I had a stupid day.

Then I got to the cabled waistband, which is applied sideways in the manner of adding edging to a shawl. Now, again, this could be me being too demanding, BUT - if you provide BOTH a chart AND written instructions for doing a particular piece of work, why would you avoid marking BOTH of those items to indicate that the first stitch of every right side row is SLIPPED, and bury this information in a NOTE on a completely DIFFERENT PAGE? Even if you are not supposed to slip the first stitch of the row with the twist, you could easily indicate that since all rows are charted and explained. I was going to let it go, but then I noticed that for 2 of the 4 right-side rows of the waistband, you are supposed to attach it to two body stitches instead of just one. Now this, I could not let go, it created a tremendous flair at the waistband. So I ripped it off and redid it.

That was my last mishap. This is what it looked like yesterday. Now, I wonder - what will happen when I block and wear it, given that the applied bottom edge seems to want to ROLL UP??? Sigh. The cursed sweater.

One sleeve to go. I tried it on. It fits nicely. It's a bit too long but I will just be careful what I wear it with. The yarn is Berella Muskoka, an old out-of-print 100% merino from Canada that I've had in my stash for a long time. It's a bit firmer than the merinos of today, so I think it will be reasonably durable.

I fumed and frogged over this project for a week or so while I tried to get inspired to cast on something else. Usually when I have a vacancy in the WIP lineup I can't wait to run and start something, but it took me a lot of pondering over my Ravelry queue before I decided what to do.

This is the Cable and Lattice pullover from Vermont Fiber Designs, and Cascade 220. I bought the yarn and the pattern at about the same time, because I just wanted this sweater in this color. It is a really good match for the pattern - the cables really pop. The body of the sweater is based on one of my favorite cable patterns of all time. I figured, if I want to knit a wine-colored cabled pullover, this is the time of year to do it.

So what, you may be wondering, about the old spinning wheel?? I was restrained at WEBS because I was acquiring something else that same morning.

This is an antique Canadian production spinning wheel, made by Philias Cadorette in St Hyacinthe, Quebec, probably in the late 1920s. The maker's mark is a little damaged, but mostly clearly present.

I bought it from someone in Maine who met me at WEBS to make the handoff. As I carried it across the parking lot, people were admiring it, and someone said, "We covet your wheel even though we don't spin." It's that beautiful.

It really doesn't need any work at all. It obviously has not been stored in an attic, next to a fireplace, or in a damp basement. The wheel is quite true and the joins are tight.

The wheel hub, of all places, has some pretty grain in the wood.

The flyer is balanced and quiet, and the iron saddle does not bind on the mother of all.

I can put a 3.5 ounce cop on the bobbin! That is unusual for an antique wheel.

The bobbin is made so that it nests ever so slightly into the flyer whorl. I haven't seen anything like that anywhere else although I'm sure it's not unique.

The interesting patterns of wear on the flyer make me think that it was used in a cross-threaded manner for its whole life. Why else would there be wear like this on the back of the flyer arm, and below the hooks?

Its spokes have this pretty turning.

The day after I got it, it went to a party with lots of others of its kind. It also got a little beauty treatment of the inside of its bobbin bearings, from the Canadian Production Wheel Pit Crew (long story), so that its takeup would be better.

If you click through to the flickr set for the party you can see 9 different Canadian production wheels all gathered in a room together. Le Premier Reunion des Rouets Canadiens was held on the 27th, in Athol, Mass. There were three identical wheels there, two marked as by Philias and a third that was the same in every way although its mark had been lost. There are more flickr photos of the details of my Philias Cadorette wheel also.

This is a really beautiful wheel. I brought it home and put it next to its young cousin in my small study.

Having French-Canadian ancestry, as I do, and having spent a lot of time doing genealogy (really easy for Quebec, everything is very well preserved and available online), it was not difficult for me to determine that Philias Cadorette was third cousin to my great grandmother. Because the initial immigrant population of Quebec was so small, if you carry in your family tree a name that was present in the country prior to 1700, you are related to almost everyone. Therefore, that is not as thrilling as it may sound, but it's still pretty cool. I wish it was possible to know more about these people who left little information behind, other than the marked products of their work and their names and signatures in parish and government records. What we know of Philias is that he was a middle son of an established maker of wheels, and that when he was about 25 he left Quebec to go to Vermont. On his border crossing record he described himself as a telegraph operator. However, 12 years later he was back home (based on census information), and by the time of his father's death and his own marriage, when he was in his mid-40s, he was clearly the heir of the business, his occupation identified as "industriel". So, although he evidently tried to dash off to the US and become something else, he ended up coming back and making these functional and very beautiful pieces of work anyway. Whatever else can be known of his story is yet to be found in more recent Canadian records that are not yet released to the public....
============
I am updating this to add a note about my friend Philias. He was indeed the third son of his father. However, I was able to locate death records for both his older brothers. The first son in the family died at the age of 7, when Philias was 1 year old. The second son died in 1910 at the age of 31 and was listed as a maker of spinning wheels at the time of his death. Philias was present at the funeral and signed the register, so perhaps he had to come home from Vermont and take over the family business at that time.

First, a pretty silk scarf from a Silkworker tussah top called Candy Apple.

The body is the Shetland Chequered Acre pattern.

The perky edging is called Doris.

Fall is a good excuse for hats. I knitted two.

A no-fool-roun'-warm hat from a friend's BFL handspun, as a joint gift to the fellow who keeps our wheels up and spinning happily.

A fat fuzzy pull-it-down-to-your-chin-warm hat for me from handspun mill end wool and mohair.

The biggest part of my time this fall, though, was taken up with spinning wheels. A (ulp...cough, cough) HOUSEFULof spinning wheels.

My cozy knitting corner.

The rest of the kitchen story.

Today the kitchen, tomorrow the world!

The office crowd.

The studio, storing wheels for long-tem rehab.

And holding most awesome pride of place among the wheels--
A castle wheel and reel from Maine.

The first of my little collection to be restored and returned to useful life is a wheel brought from Sweden by homesteaders in Maple Plain, Minnesota. The story of its remarkable rescue and transformation is too big, and the details too beautiful, to tell now, but here is a glimpse of a grand old Swedish wheel, humming as it makes yarn in a kitchen once again.

It was in pretty tough shape when I bought it on eBay a year ago (Thanks, Detta, for the photo).

With generous help and information from owners of similar wheels (story with names and links to be fully told later), Erwin Nistler of Maple Plain MN repaired broken parts and recreated a host of missing parts.

Now my Swedish wheel stands majestic and tall and beautiful.

The wheel has come back to life, and oh. how it spins. It flies with a feather touch. It runs relaxed and easy, true and fast and fine. The first time I sat down at it I spun half a two ounce tussah top in one sitting.

It is nothing if not consistent.

Tussah singles, first half.

Tussah singles, second half.

The deep grooves in the flyer arms say that this spinning wheel was a well-used production wheel. Now it is back to doing the work it was made to do.

In a few days (and way too many packing boxes between now and then) I will be leaving for Hawaii for the winter.The old wheels will be tucked away in North Dakota, and hopefully my next blog post will begin "Aloha from Molokai......"

It's huge. It's about 32 inches long from shoulder to hem and I am only 64 inches long altogether. It fits nicely around the chest and shoulders (I got about a 39 inch chest circumference with the yarn and needles I used) to go over a long sleeved t-shirt. But it'll need to be worn with leggings or other skinny pants, or it'll just look frumpy I think.

The color is a little washed out in these photos, it's a heathered navy.

It was a fairly easy knit. I used size 7 needles instead of 8 or 9, so that I could get some shrinkage - the original pattern would have had something like 9 inches of ease on me.

There were weird things about the pattern. The bottom edge was just weird. After you finish sewing up the entire thing you pick up all around the bottom, knit two rows, and bind off. WHY?? If I had read all the way through I would have knitted some kind of edge right when I cast on, but I didn't, so I knitted a row and purled a row, trying to minimize roll, and then cast off. It still rolls but it looks more intentional... I did cast off at the top of the body and pick up again for the yoke, I figured the reason for that was to reduce the sag factor of the weight of the tunic, so I kept it although it seemed counterintuitive. I also narrowed the neckline a little because there are few things more annoying in a sweater than having it fall off your shoulders. I like how that turned out.

It's nice and light for its size, I only used 5 full skeins of Ultra Alpaca plus enough from the 6th skein to knit a teeny sleeve. I have seen a lot of people on Ravelry knit this out of the recommended yarn, a soft spun singles, and I am just DYING to know how long they wear it before the entire seat of the thing falls apart. You definitely will be sitting down on this one.

Meantime, I was ambushed on eBay by an adorable antiique flax wheel that was of Canadian provenance. It was in really good shape and quite attractive, so I didn't even put it on my watch list, thinking it would go for its Buy It Now price which was a bit high for me. A few days after the auction ended, though, I remembered it, and retrieved the link from where I had posted it to a Ravelry forum, and checked. No one had bought the wheel. Yikes. I emailed the seller and told her my tale, and she said she was going to relist it with a lower BIN price. I watched it for about a day and a half after she relisted it, and when no one jumped, well, I did.

The story of the wheel was that the seller had purchased it about 30 years ago, somewhere between Windsor and Toronto in Ontario, and had it refinished and refurbished, and the distaff was a reproduction as well as one leg but I'm not sure which one. Upon reviewing all the photos, the estimable Alan Ramer said he believed the wheel was originally made in Nova Scotia or eastern Quebec and was a fairly typical example of flax wheels from the region.

The following photos are all in my flickr set of spinning wheel photos, and you can see more closeups of the wheel's parts over there.

The seller had very carefully labelled each piece with a letter, and placed the same letter at the place where the piece attached to another piece, so assembly was easy.

The table had this pretty fluting on both ends, which I find so appealing.

The table itself was a SOLID slab of wood. You can more clearly see the signs of handwork on the bottom of it.

The mother of all assembly.

The flyer (yes, with the whorl on backwards...).

These flax spinners must have spun really fine. The orifice is tiny and I had to make my own hook out of a paper clip to find something that would fit through. The hooks are so close together that I can only use every other one on the test bobbin I'm spinning, and I am not a fat spinner.

The bobbin end with its cute turnings.

The obviously hand made end of the crank.

The way the wheel rim is put together.

The two ends of the bobbin are not attached to the core and will have to be glued. Luckily the fit is smooth and tight and there is no old glue to be removed.

As you might be able to tell in the first photo, there are some slight quirks with the treadle and footman. The footman is clearly a retrofit and is both too wide and too thick - it rubs on the crank, and it bangs on the back leg and the side of the table. I've bandaged with rags until I can get this dealt with. This may be telling me which leg is the reproduction... Also the treadle bar does not look as if it is long enough in the back, it doesn't stick out from under the table as much as it should, which probably contributes to the footman issues.

There is also a hole for a peg to hold the mother in place once you've adjusted your tension, and I have a quarter inch dowel shoved in there for now - I will need to shape that a little better so it does its job properly.

All put together, even despite these issues, it spins readily and smoothly. The wheel is heavily weighted by the crank, and when you stop it turns till the crank is resting downward, but once you are expecting this it does not take you by surprise. In one end of the treadle bar, there is a fixed pin, and in the base of the opposite leg there is a fixed pin - there is no way to put this together wrong. The pins were a bit rusty but I rubbed them with steel wool, cleaned them with WD40, and greased them with lithium grease, and they are very smooth. This is the third antique wheel I've sat in front of in the past month, and it amazes me how ready they are to work - nothing balky about them, they were made for a purpose and they just go when they are clean and oiled and assembled.

With cash in hand, I ordered a Kromski Prelude from Copper Moose. For these wheels new, the price is pretty much the same everywhere, and they are all shipped out of the distributor's location in Atlanta, so you can base your choice more on the freebies each vendor offers, or on your personal previous experience with a vendor. Besides having bought very good fiber from Copper Moose before, my attention was caught by the little note on their website that they were open to swapping around your choice of freebies. When it was all settled, instead of their offered freebies I was getting the fast flyer.

The box arrived on a Friday, and my plan for the Columbus Day holiday was to put on the finish and get the thing put together. Someone on Ravelry had done her Kromski in Briwax with lovely results, and it sounded like something I ought to be able to handle.

So here's the Prelude.

This color was called 'Antique mahogany' but it does not look like any of the other mahogany I own! it is so light, it almost looks like cherry to me. I'm thinking someday when it turns warmer outside again I will go over it either with another coat of this, or with a darker color.

The wheel is built to be exclusively a single drive wheel - the whorls are constructed as part of the flyer, and are at the front of the flyer, and the scotch brake is at the back. It's quite a different setup from what I am used to but it does not appear to make a difference in how the wheel works. Also the wheel came with a poly drive band, which I had never used before, but for this wheel I like because it reduces the amount of adjusting I have to do. The tension is a tilt mechanism very similar to the Ashford Traditional - there is a hinge holding the top of the mother of all to the base, and you open or close the hinge with a turned peg.

I am not 100% thrilled with the job I did with the Briwax. I did it outdoors to avoid too much solvent inhalation, and it was so chilly that day that the wax was lumpy and gummy rather than smooth. That's my excuse as to why it looks like an antique wheel that is in need of a good cleaning! I just didn't get the wax out of all the turnings as well as I should have, and especially the flyer with all its intricate parts was very difficult.

I have been breaking it in as much as I have time for - the new leather bearings are extremely thirsty and I have gone through an incredible amount of oil in just three weeks to keep it from getting stiff and balky. I've been using only the fastest speed, which is about 16:1, and I'm finding it is smoothing out nicely.

I hope the Mazurka is playing nicely in its new home. It served me very well for a few years but I am happier with the style of the Prelude.

The wingspan on this lovely thing, after blocking, has got to be 8 or 9 feet, as the points hang nearly to the ground when it is draped across my shoulders.

It is BIG. And gorgeous.

The yarn is Knitpicks Gloss lace, in "sterling", and I used 3 full skeins plus a small part of the fourth (I ran out of the third skein a few inches into the edging). The knitting took from July 5th to Sept 28th and then it took me nearly the whole month of October to find time to block it.

I was playing with my camera taking some macro pictures of it.

PS Anne is NOT six feet tall.

On the last Saturday in September, someone from my spinning group had a gathering at her lovely old Harford County farmhouse, and the centerpiece of the party was some natural dyeing.

She had three pots going - indigo and cochineal with kits from Halcyon, and goldenrod just done with available plants (goldenrod is everywhere in Maryland in September). I don't go for yellow but I tried out the other two. I was lucky to have two skeins of undyed Knitpicks yarn hanging around the house and brought them along.

Everyone had stuff to dunk in the indigo pot, which is an art in itself because you don't want to oxidize the dye by introducing bubbles of air into the bath when you push in your fiber. My first skein is the sort of big one on the top rail in the middle of the photo. Subsequently, it looked like this.

What a gorgeous color. I really love indigo and had never had the opportunity to make something real indigo before. This is 800 yards of Knitpicks merino lace, enough to knit myself a pretty shawl to savor all that color.

My second skein, 4 ounces of fingering weight Knitpicks silk/merino (same as their Gloss line), went into the cochineal first. It made a lovely magenta, but somehow the mordant was not working, and the color drained out of the fiber as soon as it was lifted from the pot, so it was merely a pale pink. I dropped it back into the indigo, hoping for mauve... somehow the blue took really strongly, so back it went into the cochineal. It bled and bled and bled pink when I washed it at home, and ended up this sort of not-quite-purply shade.

Socks, I think... maybe. No plans for it right now.

Emmy had a turn at cranking one of the many antique sock machines that were there that day.

She also met a pudgy wooly bear on the sidewalk.

I was admiring the little flax wheel belonging to Rose from my group. She has been working with it to make it less finicky and flukey, but it is so pretty! It made me discontented with my Mazurka and longing for a little saxony I could take around places with me. More on that subject in the future.

I plyed up two skeins of stuff that were sitting on Mazurka bobbins, and hung them out to dry. The pink is handdyed merino, and the white is pure alpaca that I handcombed from the batch that we got for free at a spinning group meeting a little while back.

I navajo-plyed the merino and got about 210 yards to 3 ounces. I think maybe a hat would be the right use for this, it's very cheerful. The alpaca surprised me. I was not trying for a fine yarn, I was actually hoping for somethiing poofy and medium-weight. What I got was about 270 yards to 2.8 ounces, which strikes me as fingering weight. It is VERY VERY soft - it went into the hot water feeling a little stiff and overspun, but it softened up beautifully and is quite lovely now. It was a lot of labor to comb it but now that I know what it can do, I will be less loath to go back to it. I think maybe a scarf.

When I stepped onto the back porch to shoot photos of the yarn, I unwittingly disturbed Mamacat who was sitting there. I figured since she'd already run down the steps I'd just go on and take my photos, and she stayed at the bottom of the steps watching me.

She appeared to be expressing her opinion about my spinning. Or maybe it's just that whenever she sees me she thinks of cat food.

OK so what is done? I finished the knitting of Ice Fantasia. I have not yet had time to block it, and it's been done for over a week. We spent all weekend obsessed with head lice..... but that is all over now, thank goodness, it just wasted days of our time and energy! So Ice Fantasia is not blocked. But isn't it just so pretty even so??

It already feels big and it hasn't been stretched out yet. I think I will set myself that task on the Columbus Day holiday.

Meantime, I am enjoying knitting on the Alpaka Tunic as we move into red-wine weather. It's an easy knit and I'm almost up to the armholes on the back. The second photo is a bit more true as to the shade of the yarn, but it's a little washed out.

The Sottopassaggio socks are coming along, the second sock is past the heel flap so it should be done soon. I think I will hold off starting something else until I finish the socks too... I have some ideas.

I have been working on the edging of Ice Fantasia for WEEKS now, and I'm just about 2/3 of the way done. You are supposed to knit 79 repeats of a 12-row pattern, and it takes longer than it sounds like it should. This is going to be a big shawl when it's blocked.

One of the cool things about this pattern is that the third chart, the mesh, is the same pattern as the second chart, except that she drops the plain wrong-side rows and condenses the chart so that every row is lace.

The yarn is prettier than these photos show, it's more silvery and not just flat grey.

This is my current sock project - it's Sottopassaggio by Yarnissima from the latest issue of Twist Collective. After these pictures were taken, I finished the first sock last night. (Pardon all the blurred pictures, I'm not sure what my problem was yesterday.)

The construction of this is clever - it seems to be based upon the Coriolis architecture from Cat Bordhi's last book, the twisted stitch panel moves across the instep and disappears behind the pattern coming up the side of the heel flap. As a result, it looks like one odd piece of work unless it has a foot in it.

The yarn is Hipknits 'Ophelia', I think in a color called Bluebell, that I got in a Ravelry swap. It has scant yardage for sock yarn, so I didn't try to push my luck and get a tall sock. I will knit the second one to the same length as this one, and then if I have yardage left, I'll see about making them both a little taller.

I couldn't stop myself from casting on for the Alpaka Tunic from the last issue of Interweave Knits. I had pretty much decided, after my swatching exercise, to use Valley Yarns Stockbridge, which was the same fiber blend and yardage as the yarn called for in the pattern, but it was plyed so it'd have some durability. Then, my LYS had a sale on Berroco Ultra Alpaca which made it the same price to buy that yarn there, as to order Stockbridge from WEBS. So I threw a little support to the LYS. This is a very pretty dark navy heathered color that is not captured in the photo. So far this is being an easy knit, which is a nice offset to that edging...

The pattern is Johanna by Julia Riede and you can get it via Ravelry. I used an entire 150 gram skein of Wollmeise wool/nylon in 'Gewitterhimmel', plus about 14 grams of extra that Kerry sent me from her skein. They fit extremely well and I think they may even stay up without alterations.

The key to this pattern's success, for me, was the ability to place the calf shaping in the right spot. I knitted the leg and tried it on until I was up to the place where the calf muscle starts to increase in size, then began to work the center back chart containing the increases. The shaping of the increases was a pretty good match for the shape of my leg, and when the increases were done I could rib until I hit the place I wanted the top of the sock to be.

These took awhile to make because I backtracked a few times to be sure I got a good result. I started in mid June and knit the entire foot and heel, then decided I didn't like the fit and ripped and went to size 0 needles. While I was at it, I calculated some numbers and used the master Riverbed architecture from the Cat Bordhi book to make the foot and heel because I knew I would get a good fit. Then, twice on the way up the leg I paused for clarifications from the designer to be sure how to properly transition from one section to the next. The first sock took 6 weeks to make, the second one just a month. It never felt like drudgery to knit these, for whatever reason - I was perfectly happy to work on them. Maybe it was the lace pattern - just short enough, just enough interest (moving stitches back and forth at the beginning of the row to keep the lace lined up). Maybe it was the yarn. Who knows. But I'm ready to make another pair of knee socks!

I don't know how the designer made a pair of these with just one skein of Smooshy. Maybe she is petite/not very tall. I thought for sure if she could do it with that, I could do it with one full skein of Wollmeise as I am not particularly tall myself, but I ran a wee tad short. If you want to make these, be sure you have plenty of yardage.

This is how I might wear them, come fall...

Sigh. But it's pretty and it is a style that would look good on me and be comfortable. What's a knitter to do?

Swatch, of course. That's an excuse to buy samples of a whole buncha yarns.

The pattern calls for size 9 and 10 needles, and a gauge of 17 stitches and 22 rows to 4 inches. In addition, it says that the 23-stitch-wide lace pattern should knit up to be 5 1/2 inches wide.

Here are my results, with totally personal/YMMV comments. My swatches are 25 stitches wide - I used one border stitch in garter on each side of the 23-stitch pattern. You may notice that the swatches are not perfectly square. I found that the swatches were narrower at the bottom than the top. I am not sure if that was my knitting, or the pattern, but it was astonishingly consistent across seven swatches!

1) Valley Yarns Florence. This yarn is discontinued and on its way out but it occurred to me that it had possibilities as a sub for this pattern. It is poofy, light as a feather, and put together with a nylon binder. And the yardage is pretty much identical: 109 yards to 50g. I had some left from a project I did a year or two ago.

I knitted this swatch on size 9 needles. It came out pretty close to the right width - given that the smallest size tunic would have 10 inches of ease on me, I think this yarn would work great and I could use size 8s. This one is a thumbs up. Swatch weight: 9 grams.

2) Liberton Corriedales 100% corriedale yarn. I have no idea what the putup of this yarn is, I just know I have a big ol' one pound hank of it that was given to me. It is cushy and pretty and I've always eyed it at Maryland Sheep and Wool and not bought it. I had it on hand and wanted to see what it would do.

I think I knitted this on size 9 also, which is clearly too big for this yarn. When I washed the swatch, the yarn softened and filled out nicely, but I still think it would need to be knitted significantly tighter to wear properly in a garment. Thumbs down for this application, but nice yarn for something else. Swatch weight: 10 grams.

3) Elann Superwash Bamboo. This is 65% wool and 35% bamboo, and 109 yards to 50g. The recommended gauge is 19-20 stitches to 4 inches. I thought perhaps something with some bamboo would give a little of the same lightness and drape that the alpaca provided in the roving yarn.

I knitted this swatch on size 8s. Although it is completely different from the yarn specified in the pattern (this yarn is not fuzzy, and it has a sheen), I really liked this swatch. Tentative thumbs up. Swatch weight: 9 grams.

4) Elann Peruvian Sierra Aran. 80% wool and 20% alpaca, aran weight, 91 yards to 50g so a little heavier. Selected because of the alpaca.

I knitted this swatch on size 8s. It has a nice fuzziness to it, but I thought it was too heavy for a tunic this size, and also not drapey enough. I will make use of this ball for something else, but for this project, I think thumbs down. Swatch weight: 10 grams.

5) Elann Incense. 50% wool, 25% silk, 25% bamboo, 114 yards to 50g, and calls for a gauge of 19-20 stitches to 4 inches. Seemed close to a worsted sort of gauge, and seemed guaranteed to have drape and be lightweight.

I knitted this swatch on size 7s. OK, yum on this yarn - drape, sheen, very soft. A little pricier than the others tested so far, but still not an expensive yarn. My only concern with this one was that I think I would even want to knit it tighter to make it into a good fabric, and the swatch was already too small. Very nice yarn but thumbs down for the tunic. Swatch weight: 7 grams.

6) Valley Yarns Stockbridge. 50% wool and 50% alpaca, 109 yards to 50g, and calls for a gauge of 5 stitches per inch. Seemed as close to the original yarn as possible in terms of fiber content and yardage per weight.

I knitted this swatch on size 7s and I think it was a good gauge for the yarn, the swatch has a nice feel. Since I am looking to reduce the size of the finished item, I think this would be a very good compromise. Thumbs up!
Swatch weight: 8 grams.
7) Araucania Aysen. 70% merino, 20% alpaca, 10% silk, 191 yards to 100g, calls for 4 stitches per inch on size 9s. I happened to see this on closeout at WEBS when I was grabbing a hank of Stockbridge, and there was something about the fiber blend and one particular color they had, that I could not resist. It is also a singles, which defies common sense (see my whining about being able to sit down, above) but which sounded like it might make a similar fabric to the roving yarn.

I knitted this swatch on size 8 needles. This is definitely the oddball of the group of swatches I made - the colors probably obscure the pretty lace too much, and it will not wear all that well, but BOY would it be yummy to swathe oneself in on a winter day! I can't resist this. Thumbs up for yarn beauty. Swatch weight: 8 grams.

So there it is. I think Stockbridge, Florence, and even that Superwash Bamboo would make very nice versions of this. And the Aysen is very nice too. It will be hard for me to decide.

One thing I wanted to do, and didn't, was weigh the swatches. A difference of a couple of grams in a swatch like this would make the difference between one pound on your shoulders and 2 pounds. I will do that, and come back and update this entry with a weight for each swatch in the next day or two.

Titania is done.

It turned out to fit pretty well - this is not a sweater you would want with a huge amount of ease. I used yarn that knitted up with more stitches per inch than the specified Cotton Fleece, and made a size that was 4 inches larger than I needed, and it turned out pretty much right on.

Waistline:

Neckline:

Sleeve:

For all it's so lacey and cottony, I won't be wearing it until the less-humid days of fall. The sleeves are 3/4 length and a little snug, so it would be all sweat all the time if I put it on now.

The yarn (Valley Yarns Longmeadow) is cotton and microfiber and it turned out to be quite nice. While splitty to knit with, it is lightweight and a little shiny, and it shows the stitches of this pattern really well.

I am still working away at the Johanna knee socks. I have one sock completed. (It's hard to photograph a sock on your own leg, and I had already put the tripod away before I did this - you'll just have to wait till the pair is done to get a properly proportioned photo!)

I am really pleased with how this turned out, with the size 0 needles and the Bordhified foot. As I got to the top of the leg shaping, I began to realize I was running really tight on yarn. My skein weighed about 164 grams, and I had hit 85 remaining and was at least an inch and a half shy of the full length. Amazingly, Kerry came to my rescue with 20 grams of the exact same shade of Wollmeise! Lucky thing, too. Weight of completed single sock: 91 grams. Weight of remaining yarn: 95 grams.

I feel like I have been working on this forever, so the second sock should take no time at all. I knitted the entire food and heel and an inch up the leg before I decided it was too big and frogged. After finishing the heel, I had to pause for a bit waiting for confirmation from the designer that there was a direction missing from the pattern, because suddenly the start of the round moved from the side of the foot to the center back with no indication of how to make that happen. Then I knitted up the leg, and paused again waiting for help from the designer because the start of the round moved back to the side of the foot again (for this one she had to knit part of a sample to find out what she wanted to recommend I do). This time, I am totally armed with all the information I need and I can just knit.

As a break from all the thinking about the sock, while I was waiting the last time, I started some other lace. This is the Ice Fantasia by Anne Hanson from the winter issue of Twist Collective.

I am using KnitPicks Gloss laceweight yarn (merino and silk) in the Sterling colorway - it seemed like a good match for the idea of ice. I had intended to use Lisa's lace yarn in her Silver Lake colorway, but I got a brainstorm about what I want to do with that instead.

When Titania was done, I could no longer resist the skein of cormo/alpaca from Sixth Day Farm that was sitting on the shelf calling to me. I cast on for the Soft Cables Moebius (a Heartstrings pattern), which I had seen at Maryland and been smitten with.

This picture was taken just before I frogged and started over with a larger needle and a smaller stitch count, because it was going to come out too short. But can't you just tell what an amazing hand this yarn has? Wow. It's like knitting with heavy cream.

Last night I sat at a banjo/accordion concert and knit away and got at least halfway back to where I had left off.

I'm still working on my beautiful Peacock BFL on my Quebec wheel. Big news: I broke the yardage barrier! This skein is approximately 300 yards in 2.7 ounces, 3 ply!!

I am envisioning a pair of knee socks (again!) out of this, probably one of Cookie A's lovely kneesock patterns.

Finally, an oddball for you. Someone at my spinning group brought in this gigantic bump of roving to our fiber swap earlier in the summer - she called it "Hog Island feral sheep" wool and said we should all take some. It was interesting stuff - very short staple, very crimpy, and a little stiff. It was interesting to spin and turned out amazingly lightweight. This skein is about 225 yards to 3 ounces, two ply. No idea what I'll do with it but it was a fun exercise.

Eastern Pennsylvania style --- The area around Philadelphia was a center of spinning wheel manufacturing from the mid-1700s to the mid 1800's. Wheels from this area have an upright stance; "shotgun shell and olive" spoke turnings; and richly rounded turnings on legs, maidens, and finials. Some makers used vertical braces to support the wheel uprights; some decorated spokes, legs, and maidens with bands of colored paint. As settlers spread into the midwest and mid-south, they brought elements of this style with them, and developed it according to local taste.

Hannah - New Jersey, near Philadelphia.

Lydia - Berks County, Pennsylvania.

Lady Jane - Missouri Ozarks.

Granny - southeastern Michigan. Closely resembles some very old eastern Pennsylvania wheels.

Northern New England style --- The flax wheels of Northern New England are vastly different from Pennsylvania wheels. They have an elongated stance; widely splayed legs; broad-rimmed wheels with many spokes; sinuous curves, straight lines, and plain turnings. Their design springs from the Shaker philosophy of simplicity and practicality. It was used by both Shaker and non-Shaker wheel makers in the 1700s and 1800's. This characteristic Shaker style also spread into the Midwest as new territory was settled.

Sweet Annie...my first wheel - Southeastern Michigan.

H. Thomson wheel (signed) - Southwestern Maine.
Mr. Thomson was a non-Shaker who made fine wheels in the Shaker style.

Roots in the Old Country --- Immigrants have come to America from pre-Colonial times right up to the present, bringing their precious possessions and priceless heritage with them. As communities have grown, heirloom wheels brought by settlers and new ones made by kocal craftsmen following the old ways have found a place among America's spinning wheels. Every locale has its history and its distinctive wheels...whatever their style, however old. They are a treasure.

Liebchen...my Little Sweetheart - Southeastern Missouri. A magnificent Lower Saxony bride's wheel, tour-de-force of the woodturner's art and stacked double flyer for an expert spinner. The yellow ruler is twelve inches long.

With "a little love and a lotta oil" my wheels are beginning to spin again. They do beautifully with silk.

Sweet Annie in the morning sun.

Sweet Annie's skein.

Hannah's first bobbin.

Hannah's skein.

And in the event that I get too besotted with the wonder of it all, they do not hesitate to pull rank, age and status on me.

Teacher, the dog ate my homework!!

You can see on the sole of the sock the increase lines that show it's being worked in the Riverbed architecture. Once I arrived at the end of the heel flap and went back into round knitting, it was just the Johanna pattern again. I have a much snugger fit in the foot now, and a narrower ankle. I can still switch to size 1 needles later as I go up the leg. I would rather start out with a sock that is a little too snug, than one that is already too baggy.

I also finished the back of Titania. This is going to be a very pretty sweater.

I like the yarn too - it is very lightweight. I used just over two balls of Longmeadow for the entire back. I am knitting the 36 inch size, and getting a piece that is about 32 inches wide at the underarms unblocked, so I think it will turn out about as I intended. The pattern has you do the front first, but after completing the midriff segment I decided to make the back first because that midriff pattern, with lace on both right and wrong side rows, took some getting used to, to be sure I slanted the purl decreases the right direction and lined up the lace correctly. I should get a slightly better looking piece on my second try!

We had an interesting spinning group meeting Friday night. Someone showed up with about 20 pounds of raw alpaca fleece, which had been sent to her by a friend who raises alpacas for fun and has no use for the fiber. We all rummaged in the bags and took home lumps of the fleece, which seemed very silky and reasonably clean. I may have ended up with a pound or two, it was hard to tell. I took some white and some grey.

Knowing absolutely nothing about preparing and spinning alpaca, I checked on the Fiber Prep group on Ravelry, and found that while some people don't wash alpaca, it is a good idea to do so because alpacas have a habit of enjoying a good roll in the dust on a regular basis... So I popped both into the washing machine as if they were sheep fleece. Boy did I get muddy water out of that! They are drying now and looking even better, although there is still a lot of vegetable matter (in this case, sticks and twigs) to comb out. I guess I will try combing the stuff and see what happens when I try to spin it.