Recent FOs

Last month I had finished up a few things and was plugging away at my Ashburn for the the Big Bad Berg-along KAL. I’m happy to report that I finished mine in time for the extended deadline. The knitting took forever and I don’t really care for the shape but I love how the middle texture part came out and I’m pleased with the bind off.

My only real issue was that both the Red and the Brown yarns bled dye. I had suspected that the red might so I had pre-soaked the skein and it wasn’t less an issue when I went to finish the garment. The bigger issue was the brown, which released a lot of yellow but they were both a problem in the end.

I was already half done with the brown section and had several of the white stripes completed when I had realized the dye issue. I was loath to start over and I didn’t think that washing it on the needles would be a good idea, plus I’d have to skein and rewind the remaining yarn and, silly me, I thought that would be too much of a pain.

So I left it alone, knit the shawl and then tried washing just that end to test the problem. Sure enough, it bled like crazy and the edge that touched the white section ended up a little stained. Same thing happened to the edge touching the red so at a certain point I just put it all in to even up the staining. I’m a little disappointed since the white textured section was my favorite but it’s not too obvious unless you do a direct comparison like above and the discoloration is at least even and faded so when worn as modeled by Tigger below, you cant even tell. The good news is that if I ever get the desire to do something wintery neutral and textured, I know I’ll order up some of the Birch colorway again and know to keep it away from darks.

On the spinning front, I’m playing along with the Ghost Story Art Challenge SAL for Spindlemania, another Ravelry group focused on spindle spinning. The challenge is to complete a project based on an idea from a ghost story that you love, starting from fiber processing, making batts or rolags, spinning an “art yarn” and then weaving/knitting or crochet a project from a minimum of 2oz of fiber. I choose the Ghost of Christmas Past, from Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol, which I know many people think of this as a Christmas story but when you read it it is most definitely a ghost story. This ghost appears to Scrooge as a white-robed, androgynous figure of indeterminate age. It has on its head a blazing light, reminiscent of a candle flame, and carries a metal cap, made in the shape of a candle extinguisher.

I made two yarns that incorporated three colors and fiber types which gave me the chance to continue my fiber study using the geeky fun Chemistry sets from Elemental Fiberworks.

I played with a number of combinations but ultimately I decided to blend the yellow Sulfur colorway in Masham and the peachy Neon colorway in SW Merino/Merino/Silk together in small rolags first and spin from those, trapping the fluffy orange up in the long Masham staple. I spun a second single from just the merino/silk and plied those together for 100 yds of “candle light”.

This combination gave a nice softness to the harsh scratchy yellow and almost looked like candle flames flickering throughout the skein. I washed it fairly aggressively to lightly felt it and it puffed up wonderfully.

Then I took the remaining Sulfur fibers and lightly carded the with the grey Carbon in Cheviot to get a yellowed gray and Andean Plied it get 50 yds of “candle extinguisher”.

Now that the yarn was processed and spun I still needed to knit it into something. I searched for a worsted hat pattern with 2 colors, originally thinking I’d do something striped but when I came across the Algonquin Hat I new it was the right one. It calls for 100 yards of MC and 50 yards of CC which is right on the line but with handspun you never now. Thankfully it has a solid section at the crown so if I run short I still have .5 oz of the Carbon left over that could be spun by itself for the last bit and not look out of place with the design.

November Spindlers SAL: Take flight

Spindlers is a group on Ravelry that is focused on spindle spinning. They have great information on spinning technique, showcase spindle spun finished objects and WIPs, and host a monthly Spin-a-Long (SAL). Each month has a theme and participants just have to use a spindle to spin, start to finish, 1 oz of fiber that is tied in some way to the theme. The themes are chosen by previous “winners” of the random drawing FO contest and offer a lot of latitude in how you tie your color, fiber content, finished yarn or intentions to the theme.

November’s theme was Take Flight. There were several sky inspired spins, some tied to birds and winged fantasy creatures but when I looked at my fiber and the theme I was drawn to a 1oz of Rambouillet I bought as part of a Fiber Chemistry Sampler set offered by Elemental Fiberworks in the colorway Helium. It had pale purples and peachy pinks in the braid and the way it looked made me think of balloons.

I love these SALs because with only 1 oz of fiber to ”lose” and the license to be creative I don’t have to be afraid of trying new ideas and failing. If it end’s up being unusable I’ve only lost a little time and fiber and so far I’ve been thrilled with the results of every experiment and have really expanded my boundaries. This month I decided to try out spinning thick and thin. While it was something that came naturally due to inexperience in my first spin it’s much harder to do deliberately now that I’ve learned how to control my drafting. It was a challenge at first but then I realized that the variations didn’t have to be perfectly even or consistent and I had a ton of fun just playing with the twist, seeing how thin I could go between the thick parts and varying the length of the segments. I used my red day of the dead Turtle Made 3-D printed spindle.

Once I had almost finished the single I was at a loss of how to finish it. I didn’t think it’d hold up to n-ply, it was too short in length to do much, and I’d lose the thick and thin I’d created anyway. Last month, someone finished their spin as a 2-thread cabled single which got me thinking about all the boucle I’d seen in The Spinners Book of Yarn Design. I tried spinning the last little bit as a thin single thinking I’d use it as the second ply but I really didn’t like the look. I.After flipping through the book to learn more about the technique and how it was done I went to my sewing box, pulled out some pale pink all-purpose sewing thread and decided to give thread plying a try.

I think it’d be a bit easier to control the way the single twisted around the thread (or vise versa) with more experience or on a wheel vs. a spindle but I got the hang of it after a while and was able to mostly get the look I was going for. I ended up with 80 yards of thread plied think and think yarn. The end result was really bouncy and soft. I did a bit of mild felting during the wash and I’m really happy with how this turned out. It was an extremely quick way to spin 1 oz of fiber and made for a very satisfying project but I’m not sure what to do with it now.