Category Archives: Spinning

Escadaria socks

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The Great Sort Out is still coming along. I am definitely making inroads, but there is a long way to go still. I am looking forward to getting to the City and Guilds work currently buried on the dining table and making another good stab at that, it has been on pause for too long.

In amongst the sorting I have managed a little bit of slow knitting, a couple of rows here and there. It is surprising what can be accomplished with a few sessions of waiting for appointments, the odd 20 bars rest at band, and a bit of skyping to my sister in New York – ah the delights of hands-free phoning – and with the web-cam I can bore her rigid with my knitting too 🙂 Their weather sounds even more horrid than ours, the hats I knitted for my niece and nephew for Christmas are getting a good work-out 🙂

Anyway, I have actually finished some socks (shock horror!). I am finding socks to be a conveniently achievable size of project at the moment, and have the added bonus of being very portable, hence I do actually work on them.

Escadaria

The pattern is called Escadaria (I have absolutely no idea how to pronounce it), and came from Sockupied, Spring 2011, one of the eMags from Interweave. I made the middle size (9in circumference), used 2.25mm needles and the yarn is some 75% superwash merino, 25% seacell fibre dyed by Fluff n Stuff and spun into a 3ply by me. Conveniently I used almost exactly the whole skein – only a couple of metres were left at the end.

EscadariaFlat

The pale flashes are bits of the seacell which I didn’t manage to distribute evenly when I was spinning.

The yarn has come out rather hard and somewhat inelastic, although it is mostly wool it feels and looks like a mercerized cotton. This is something I am keen to work on with my spinning in the coming months. I would like to be able to spin a more elastic, squashier yarn. I am looking forward to some practising!

Hopefully in this case the fact that the yarn is quite strong should be a help rather than a hinderance, and will hopefully make the socks wear better. Also the very smooth solid nature of the yarn shows up the lace pattern well. I enjoyed knitting these, although I wasn’t that keen on the little pretend-cable pattern on the leg, and I didn’t really like the way the heel was done – the joins seemed a bit messy. It is fun trying out some different patterns, and different ways of working heels and toes. I am getting a feel for which I like to work, and how well different shapes fit my feet.

Back to the sorting I think. This week hopefully should see me finish cataloguing the rest of my knitting books.

First finished projects of 2013

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Happy New Year! I hope that 2013 has got off to a good start for everyone. I have been plodding along with the Great Sort Out. The pile of magazines and books on my arm of the settee is still large but is decreasing by the day. It is now less likely to spontaneously avalanche and bury one (or both) of us alive.

I have been knitting away in the background. More socks from my handspun. I seem to be having a purple phase at the moment.

SouthdownSocks

These are my first toe-up socks, and it was great fun! The pattern is called Having Hope by Diane Mulholland.

SouthdownSocksOnFeet

I used 2.5mm needles and 96g / 272m of handspun Southdown wool, and made the medium size.

SouthdownSocksSide

Southdown is one of the softest of the down breeds of sheep, but it isn’t nearly as soft as merino or blue-faced leicester. It is very springy though, which should hopefully make good socks, and which shows the pattern up well. Hopefully it should wear well too. I like the way the colours have come out, a bit of variation for interest, but not so much that it obscures the pattern, and not too pink 🙂

NemesisFlat

The next pair used a pattern called Nemesis by Susan Dittrich (named for the Agatha Christie book).

Nemesis

Again I used 2.5mm needles, and made the larger size. As you can see I ran out of yarn on the toe of the second sock. I used a total of 125g / 280m. Most of the yarn is a handspun blend of merino wool in purples and greens from Wingham. I used a bit of the purple Southdown for the second toe. The socks will be in my shoes most of the time so I am going to call the different coloured toe an interesting design feature 🙂

I am looking forward to wearing both of these pairs of socks. I suspect the merino pair will wear less well over time, but I am enjoying experimenting with spinning for socks and seeing how the results come out. I am also getting a better feel for how much yarn I need for a pair of socks for me, which is handy for the future.

Spinning sampling

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At the end of October the Hampshire guild held a Wingham sampling day which I went along to. Similar to the one organised by the Kennet Valley guild that I attended earlier in the year, the idea is that you bring your wheel, pay a fee, and for that fee you can try as many bits of different fibres as you would like during the day.

Here are my samples knitted up, with the fibre they came from lined up below:

The two samples with no fibre next to them are tussah silk on the right, and possum/merino on the left (it came out a bit thicker and is distorting the knitting). The others are merino, or merino/silk. The merino/silk are the ones with the shiny white flecks.

I have really enjoyed seeing how the colours change as you progress from fibre to spun yarn to knitting. It has been a very useful experience, and I am starting to get more of a feel now for how colours mix together and what I do and don’t like. I am looking forward to having a play with my drum carder soon and making my own mixtures.

Spinning some Southdown

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I do love a bit of alliteration 🙂

This is the skein of Southdown wool fibre I started spinning at the end of this year’s Tour de Fleece and have now finished.

There is 120g, about 340m, 3ply construction. I spun it using my 4th speed on my Suzie Pro, which is about 13:1.

I have enjoyed adding to my knowledge of different breeds of wool. This was the first time I had tried spinning Southdown. It is a very bouncy fibre, and feels quite different to either Merino or Bluefaced Leicester. It is not super-soft but I think will be ok for socks. I plan to make the Having Hope socks by Diane Mulholland, and think the yarn will hopefully work well, giving structure to the cables and hopefully not being too multi-coloured to see the pattern.

Sleeves in my Pi

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Another finished project! I know it is really quite shocking. Don’t expect too many more of them before Christmas!

We had a little photoshoot yesterday at my in-laws, and I proved once again that I am the least photogenic person on the planet.

I seem to be pulling a strange face and / or doing something a little odd with my arms in almost all the pictures (and we took several! ) My photographer / stylist did what he could with a difficult model, but the cardigan is lovely at least 🙂

The pattern is Sleeves in your Pi by Gayle Roehm, and was originally published in Issue 61 of Knitter’s magazine, then was also included in their collection book called Ponchos and Wraps, a Knitter’s Dozen. It is basically a big circular shawl with sleeves in.

I used 6mm needles and the yarn is my handspun, 70% alpaca, 30% merino in Cappuccino from John Arbon. After all the stressing about whether I would have enough yarn I actually used way less than the pattern called for. In the end I used about 480g which was about 915m (it is about a DK weight), even though I added an extra eight rounds to the main circle before the edging to make it a bit wider.

The cardigan is lovely and cosy without being too warm, and I am looking forward to getting a lot of wear out of it. The yarn is shedding a bit which I am a little worried about. I think I shall take it along to the next Show and Tell session at spinning group and see if anyone has any tips for how I could have spun it differently. Hopefully the shedding might stop after the first couple of times I wash it.

A nephew, a workshop, a conference, and some mittens

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I do still exist! As you have probably already guessed August and September have been rather busy, so time for a bit of a catch up with what has been happening.

First and most excitingly, we have a new nephew! Aaron is now 6 weeks old and we have waved to him on the skype several times, and he has made the grumpy face back at us. I had better get a move on with designing his Christmas stocking, especially given the speed of my knitting.

At the beginning of August I helped Jill Brownjohn to run another Patchwork knitting get together. Here we all are getting a bit of direction from Jill:

This year we went for a more relaxed get-together rather than a formal workshop. We had a discussion about joining techniques for pre-knitted shapes, and those who wanted to had a go at the methods that interested them most. It was lovely to catch up with everyone and see what they had been making over the last year, and I think the format seemed to go down well. We are not sure what will happen in 2013 since the hall we have been using for the last several years in Marlow Bottom may be closed for renovation.

A couple of weeks ago I went to the In The Loop 3 conference at Winchester. A wonderful three days, full of interesting and varied speakers and a lot of cake 🙂 I completely failed to take any photos at all 🙁 I am looking forward to having some time soon to see if I can decipher any of the notes I made. Over-excitement and terrible handwriting are not a good combination. It is a good job there is the conference programme to at least tell me who was speaking so I can always google them when my writing of their websites is incomprehensible. I really hope they will run another conference in a couple of years. I thought the programme was very well thought-out and included a lot of different angles on knitting. Lots of food for thought.

And finally I have finished some fingerless mittens:

The pattern is Wrought Mitts, and I used 2.25mm needles and some orange merino/silk handspun that I had left over from making a couple of pairs of socks. In the end I used about 37g which is about 142m. I still have a tiny amount of the yarn left over which I think will be going in the bag for making City and Guilds samples.

My hands are right at the top of the size range of what the mittens would fit. They are ok, but I think if there had been a larger size I would have knitted that. Over all I am very pleased with them, and think they will come in handy now that the weather has turned a bit cooler.

As well as everything else we have been having a bit of a go at tidying up the garden. It has been biting back, in some cases literally, but luckily the latest batch of nasty insect bites are getting much better. I think I need to find a way to make me taste less nice, I manage to get bitten even when I am covered in insect repellant! Today I had a bit of a go at the pond, clearing out some of the mass of weeds. I managed not to fall in but did get covered in smelly black mud. The poor washing machine will be on overdrive tomorrow.

Ballet, Cycling, and Socks

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It has been an action packed weekend! On Saturday we braved the crowds in London and went to the ballet to see Swan Lake. It has been more than 25 years since I last went to the ballet, and it was lovely. We had great seats, and the seats in front of us were unoccupied so we had a fantastic view.

We caught up watching the men’s Olympic Cycling Road Race in the evening, and then yesterday I braved the weather and went out to watch the ladie’s Olympic Cycling Road Race on the road.

At first it was sunny, this the direction the cyclists will arrive from:

and here are two lovely ladies I met while walking down to the race, Sue and her mum Win:

Sue is seen here in contact with base camp (her other half) giving us updates on where the race was on the telly.

We had about an hour to wait and then the cars and motorbikes leading the race started to arrive:

And then the heavens opened, and the lens cover on my camera got jammed. I am not going to win any prizes for my videographic skills, but here is the breakaway, with Lizzie Armitstead (GB, Silver medal), Olga Zabelinskaya (Russia, Bronze medal), Marianne Vos (Netherlands, Gold medal), and Shelley Olds (USA, she had a mechanical later in the race and so wasn’t in the breakaway at the finish). Shortly followed by the peloton, lead by the German team:

Next came a Dutch rider, and a German, chasing the peloton:

And then another group of three riders:

Then the rain became really torrential, but I did manage to un-jam my lens cap, and the main chasing group came through, lead by the Australian team (I do like their yellow skin suits, very nice and easy to identify), followed by more support vehicles:

Then another smaller chasing group:

And then the final rider of the race, and the last of the support vehicles. I’m not sure if you can read it on the rainy video, but the last car helpfully says “End of Race” on it.

It hailed on us while we packed up and got ready to walk back to the car. Also it was the kind of bouncing rain that not only soaked you but also covered you in grit. All of my clothes went in the wash when I got home, my shoes and bag got a wipe and are now drying in the porch. Great fun though!

If you want to watch all seven videos in the right order (hopefully!) here is the playlist:

With the train journey into London and back for the ballet I finally finished my latest pair of socks:

The pattern is Guitar Man Socks, I used 2.5mm needles, and the yarn was some rather old and wobbly hand spun left over from my Cirque Socks. There were actually 4 small balls of yarn which varied a bit in colour, which explains why one sock is a bit darker than the other. Also as you can see I ran out of yarn on the second toe and so used some left-over mill-spun yarn I had hanging around. I think they are rather fun, and the variations in yarn give them character 🙂

The pattern was fun to do. I have altered it a bit, only doing 8 instead of 10 pattern repeats on the leg (although this still makes a long sock on me), and doing 5 1/2 pattern repeats on the foot. I also extended the patterning onto the toe. I think this heel is a bit pointy for my foot, but it has been fun experimenting with different heel and toe shapings.

A bit of knitting

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I have had a bit of a break from the spinning since the end of the Tour de Fleece. It has been pretty hot here this week, and in hot weather I tend to get stuck to the fibre! I have started catching up on some of the bits and pieces which were urgently in need of sorting out round here. I have made a dent, but the pile of things on the arm of my side of the settee is still in imminent danger of causing an avalanche so I have still got a lot more to do! I think I had better sort out at least one of the filing boxes this afternoon too since it has got to the stage where I can’t stuff any more in it.

I have done a little bit of knitting. I started these socks back before I went to France, and have now finished the first one:

The pattern is a free one, called Guitar Man Socks, it is only written in one size, but that seems to be working out fine since I have wide feet. I am just making both the leg and the foot a bit shorter. The leg has actually come out quite long, even though I only did 8 pattern repeats instead of the 10 in the pattern. I think if I were to make these again I would probably only do around 6 or 7 pattern repeats on the leg.

I have started on the second sock, and was making fairly reasonable progress, but I think I was a bit distracted by everyone else’s lovely knitting at knitting group yesterday and discovered last night that I had bizarrely missed out a whole section. Luckily I had only knitted about 6 rows past the missed bit when i realised what I had done, so today I have undone it, and I shall hopefully pay better attention this time 🙂

The yarn is some rather early and wobbly handspun, dyed by me, the left-overs from my Cirque Socks.

Le Tour de Fleece 2012: Day Twenty-One

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As well as being the last day of the Tour de France today was also the day of the Singleton Rare Breeds show. Here is the view across to the show rings while the set-up was going on:

There were lots of animals to look at, including some very cute alpacas:

I was delighted to find some Southdown sheep since that is the breed of fleece I am spinning with at the moment, they look like teddy bears 🙂

There were lots and lots of sheep, from the very large like these black Wensleydales:

To the really pretty tiny, like these Castlemilk Moorits (I hope I have identified these right, I failed to include their sign in the photo).

There was also a section for fleeces and handspun, where my friend Lisa won a very well deserved two rosettes for her spinning. Well done Lisa! There were lots of lovely things on display, I’m afraid I was so busy looking at them that I failed to take any pictures in the handspun tent.

I did buy a little bit of fibre, this is a mixture of merino with a bit of trilobal nylon which makes it sparkly.

The weather was the best it has been for months. I think it is the first time this summer I have worn suncream and my sunhat in this country!

This evening I spun a bit more of the purple Southdown while we watched the last stage of the Tour. I am now part way through the second bobbin.

Today’s coin is an Isle of Man pound for Mark Cavendish’s win. What a great tour this has been for the Brits!

And this is a pile of all of the yarn I finished during the tour, I had spun about three-quarters of the singles of the brown alpaca before the tour started.

Altogether there is 1545g and 3427m. Not bad really! I think I shall have a lie-in tomorrow 🙂

Le Tour de Fleece 2012: Day Twenty

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We have had a lovely couple of days. Yesterday we went over to my in-laws and watched yesterday’s stage of the Tour in HD (which we don’t have at home). The scenery was beautiful, and the HD makes it very detailed, the only difficulty is it does make our telly look a bit rubbish in comparison 🙂 We had fun spotting the places we had visited as they cycled through. My in-laws have been holidaying in the Dordogne region for many years and so recognised quite a lot of places, one year the Tour even came past the campsite they stay at! I have only been down to that area once, but it was still fun to recognise Rocamadour, one of the very impressive towns built into the side of a hill.

Then in the evening we went up to Stratford to see A Comedy of Errors at the RSC. It was great fun, very well done, and my face hurt from laughing by the end. I love the theatre they have built, this play was in the main theatre, we had excellent seats, and with the audience on three sides of the stage you really feel part of the action.

Today we had a lovely lunch, then watched the cycling time-trial again in HD and then came home. A very enjoyable couple of days.

I have done a little bit of spinning this evening, this is the first bobbin of the Southdown I started yesterday. I forgot to mention yesterday that I bought this fibre from HilltopCloud, and the colour is called Crushed Plum.

Today’s coin is a UK one pound, the Brits have been having an excellent Tour, with Cav winning yesterday, and Bradley and Chris coming first and second today. In case you are interested this is actually a Gibraltar pound.