Handspun!!!

This past Sunday Loopy Yarns held a spin in. It was great. They had a table of free fiber, two drum carders, and snacks. I made a crazy batt of stuff from the free table, and I carded up my alpaca fleece. And I spun like crazy. Look at all this yarn!

This is Peanut, partway through being plied up. Not sure how many yards of Peanut I've got. I plied it further and will wait until it's dry to try to figure it out.

This is the crazy skein made from all kinds of stuff from the free fiber table, about 30 yards. It has some merino, some tencel, several colors of angelina (the sparkle), some mohair (I think), and some mystery wool. Pretty random and pretty awesome.

This is a merino/tencel skein, about 140 yards. I bought the roving from Miss. Babs at Stitches last fall.

This is the skein of mostly alpaca, about 75 yards. Sandy's dad brought me a bunch of alpaca that I had no way to card. Luckily Loopy had those drum carders out. I threw in some dark brown wool, some purple wool, and some angelina (the sparkle).

The alpaca on the wheel.

Yay! So much fun.

Quick Update

I've been super busy, here are a few shots of what I'm doing right now.

Plain sock, knit with colorful yarn and contrasting heels and toes.

These were my train knitting, brainless and entertaining.

Now I'll have to come up with something else simple to work on while traveling.

I just started a swirl scarf, from the Swirl Shawl pattern that Mom gave me.

Knitting these little hexagons is probably not the best train knitting. They're easy enough, but don't seem like they'd be good for frequent stopping and starting.

Hat and more of the Mittens

I have decided that I need a hat that won't clash with my Bohus Mittens.
I started playing with excel, and have cast on for a Bohus inspired hat.


Knitting close up.
It will never be as delicate, or look as blended, as the true Bohus. This yarn is heavier (though still fine at 7 stitches to the inch) and doesn't contain any angora.



The yarn, the chart, the knitting.

I'm reworking my charted ideas as I go. Some things that looked great on paper just don't seem right in yarn. I was going to try a tam type of hat, but then I decided that I shouldn't mix colorwork and major shaping in my frist color design. So it's slated to be a basic beanie style hat, with colorwork going around the side, one color ribbing, one color top.


And, a mitten update.


Close up of pretty cuffs attatched to mitten hand.



Left hand progress, hand is done, thumb is almost done.



The two in-progress mittens together. Phase one is almost complete, just a little knitting to go on the left thumb. Next I knit the flip top part of each hand. Then I'll work on the lining.

Then I can wear them.

More Mittens

I started the mitten part of my mitten last night!
Still obsessed.

Mitten number one, thumb gusset created & held on thread untill I can come back and knit it. Hand progressing nicely, almost time to work on the flip top that I'm planning. These are mittens for a girl who needs to use her fingertips in a cold, cold city.

These are also mittens for an ambitious knitter who thinks the mitten part of this pair needs to live up to the cuff part of this pair. They must be fancy with couture details, just like a Bohus sweater.

More Secret Knitting

Secret knitting for Sandy's birthday!

I designed a hat a mittens with matching cables. Designing the cable took a minute, but I really like how it turned out.

This is a close up of the cables on the hat.

And the set.

They are made from Malabrigo, a super soft merino yarn from Peru. I have it from the birthday girl that they are "so soft!"

Bohus Stickning

My current obsession.
Blue Shimmer wristlets and the alpaca blend I bought to turn them into mittens.

Mom and I took Susanna Hanson's Bohus Stickning class at Stitches Midwest. I am completely in love! I love the geometric designs, I love the subtlety of the fine color patterns, I love how the angora blooms and makes it even more blended, I love how the angora feels. (Mine haven't really bloomed yet as they're still beeing kept in a plastic bag)

A close up of one wristlet. The red thread at the bottom is a provisional cast on and will not show in the final mittens.


Susanna told us about the history of the Bohus Stickning company/movement. I imediately grabbed the Poems of Color book from the library and started obsessing. I really want to get one of Solveig Gustaffson's kits. She is meticulously recreating the dye formulas from the original sweaters. Look at her site and drool a little. I have been. Mostly over the Wild Apple, the Egg and the Forest Darkness.

Paraphrasing Susanna:
Bohus Sticking began as a way to help out an economically depressed region of Sweden. It was a coture design house, retailing sweaters for hundreds of dollars. About a third of the profits went back to the knitter (not the percentage usually paid to textile workers). The company closed it's doors when the demand started to die off in the late 60's, not wanting to sacrifice construction methods or materials to bring prices down.

New Favorite Yarn

I ordered this blue green yarn from an online shop.  It is super soft, very cushy.  I made everyone pet it.  

I think I'm going to use it for a gift though, so I hunted online and in real life for more.  

I bought this at Jo-Ann Fabrics, and I'm going to order some in a pale pink from e-bay.  Yum.  

Aeolian Shawl for Me!

All lumpy, as yet un-blocked.  

First go round of blocking.  Center of each flower pinned out.  

Each flower with five points pinned out.  The shawl gets stretched further and further as I work my way around and around.  

Flower close up.  

Cable Baby Blanket

The blanket for Melissa's baby.  

It's a boy, and her wallpaper has a really cute fish design on the chair rail portion.  So I figured that blue and white would be good, with a little cable detailing.  

This is the blanket, blocked out on our futon.

The corner (while blocked).    

The center of the blanket.  

All folded, ready to gift.  

Stephanie's Socks

I finally finished Steph's socks!  Just in time for the event that they were intended to celebrate.    

We work together, and I enjoy sending odd things through inter-office envelopes.  So I inter-officed her present to her.  The next thing I see is Steph, coming down the hall towards me, 'modeling' the socks!

I'm pretty happy with how they worked out.  My own split rib pattern in Knit Pick's Essential Peacock Multi.  I was a little annoyed that the yarn striped, Knit Picks sells a striping yarn, so you'd think that the 'multi' wouldn't stripe... anyway, they came out really well.  

Ta Da!

The birthday girl, in mom's lap with dead fish hat.  

Dad, with the catch of the day.

And the birthday girl again, with mom holding up the tail for effect.  

Tee Heee

Done!  The dead fish hat from Knitty.com.  I'll try for modeled shots later today.  I love it.  

And a Hat

When I used up the second ball of yarn for Stephanie's scarf I checked the length.  It was longer than I am tall, and will probably stretch more when I block it.  Usually you make a scarf as long as the wearer is tall and I am a bit taller than Stephanie.  I sent her a quick email to see if she would prefer a very long scarf or a ridiculously long scarf.  She chose very long, and I offered to knit a hat with the remaining yarn.  This is the hat, as yet un-blocked.  

Blocking is a process where you wet down the knitted object and stretch it to it's final dimensions.  Depending on the type of object/garment you are blocking you will stretch it more or less vigorously, using one of many stretching/wetting techniques.  This guy was supposed to be wet down and stretched over a dinner plate.  The hat seemed smaller than a plate while dry, but once soaked, it grew on it's own.  The hat is now larger than a dinner plate, so I didn't bother with it.  I simply shaped it by hand on a towel.  Blocking smoothes out all the bumps and wrinkles you see in these pictures.  

The bottom of the hat, I'll weave in that loose strand of yarn.  The ribbing won't fold over on itself after blocking.  

Several Projects at Once

My techno-geek gloves, still very much in progress. These were sort of a prototype for gloves that I wanted to knit Josh. His gloves are pictured below. As you can see I am also not very far along on that pair.




Steph's scarf, also very much in progress. I'm almost done with the second ball of yarn (Stephanie bought three). So not too much more to go.




And some sock yarn I just bought for myself (I had cupons). It is a rather pretty self striping colorway, in a yarn that the Harlot speaks very highly of.





I've been reading the Yarn Harlot's site, and some Elizabeth Zimmerman books this past week. They've got me all worked up and ready to knit (I hadn't been working on Josh's gloves at all before yesterday). Worl wears me down, I arrive home in a semi-comatose state and get very little knitting done.


I've been spinning too, but it looks pretty much the same as the last photos. Today my clunky wheel repair kit arrived! I'm excited to fix my wheel, and a little nervous. I have to drill into the hub of the wheel to install the new axel. Taking drill to wheel is giving me pause. I'll work up the nerve soon.

Japanese Short Rows

Sunday afternoon with Sussana Hansson.

Probably the best samples I've ever seen.  Super clear, well mounted, examples of what she was talking about.  Awesome handouts as well.  

This technique isn't necessarily easier than a wrapped short row, but it looks much nicer in the end, no little lumpy bit where you wrapped the stitch.  

Deliberate Drops

Saturday Morning with Chris Blysma.

She walked us through several ways to drop stitches (intentionally).  My favorite swatch is the aran sampler.  In my own knitting so far I seem to favor the controlled yarn over variety.  I think the big runs of dropped stitches scare me a bit.  

A big run of dropped stitches in plain stockinette.





Another big run of dropped stitches in my aran sampler.

The controlled yarn over variety of dropped stitches in ribbing.

Dropped edge stitch fringe. And quite possibly the ugliest baby hat I've seen in a long time. Too bad. Some people in class liked it a lot. Different strokes for different folks I guess.