Atlantic cowl

Here we go, we all know that the weather can change rapidly in the Atlantic provinces.  Wind, rain, snow and sun are all possibilities for any one day in three of the four seasons. Here is the remedy. A cowl that serves many purposes from accessory to necessity. Here are some of the ways it can be called upon to create Atlantic comfort:

Regular. The cowl is just worn around the neck. 

Folded over and tied with the coordinating tie

As a neck ruffle worn to the front or

The side. 

Folded in half and the ends tied, this version makes an ultra warm double thickness neck warmer.  A minor modification by pulling up the inner layer:

And you can go out in a blizzard. 

Cold ears?  Not anymore. 

Need a bit more coverage?  Pull down the inner layer a bit to create a brim. 

Separate the two layers up and down, for more warmth. 

Finally, a fold over in the front only, creates warmth with less bulk. 

Taa daa. This does not replace the need to have appropriate outerwear for Canadian winters. But there are times when you are expecting nice weather, and you get snow. If this was your accessory, you are immediately prepared!

Happy fall, winter and spring!

Weekend accomplishments

I was able to finish of a few spinning projects as well as a knitting project. So exciting for me!  The first to be completed was the red aqua Corriedale wool that I was Navajo plying on the fly. 3 ply of bulky vibrancy. I had completed one skein earlier in the month, and I really wanted to finish this one too. It is best to finish spinning for one purpose at once so that the weight and spin qualities are more similar. It has happened before that I have had to scrap spinning projects because I could not match my work a month later. No worries though, I always find a use for everything !  

Next I plied some singles of massam fibre that I considered keeping as singles and then weaving with them, but who knows why I felt like a 2 ply all of a sudden. So I did!!

I also spun the singles for the first skein of fruit salad coloured merino. I will have to make 2 more, but it spins quickly and I should be able to get the rest done his week. I am not a super thrilled withy self on this one. I see way too many flaws to be completely satisfied with my effort. Oh well?

I also had a lot of bobbins with bits of singles that were left over from plying their respective projects. So I spun th all together to make a buffet of fibre is relatively the same weight. Here there is angora, merino and nylon. Maybe some polwarth too. Anyway it is cute!  And incredibly soft. Might be good as is for decorative purposes. Or to make a super cute doll blanket?

Finally, I finished knitting Angelina's mittens. I hope they fit her. I will mail them soon. These were made from home spindle spun wool/llama fibre and will hopefully be warm enough. I am going to have to beat out an honest answer so I know how well this yarn will keep fingers warm!  That's it!  For now....

Pink. Everywhere.

I have been busy making stuff. But I guess too busy to share!  I received a bunch of pink merino with rainbow nylon in it and I have been contemplating its use. So I spun up a single of the pink, and a single of various other colours and blends of fibre one after another, to see what each segment would look like knitted. After I plied them, I already had a sense ofmy favourite combinations.  Totally love it with white, and with itself!

Here is the baby skein drying after setting and thwacking:

At the same time, I also set this one:  a Corriedale dyed aqua and red. I n-plied this one on the fly:

Random photo of my rack of handspun stuff. More pink. 

I dream of pink as a flash of colour in natural fibre colours. So mittens made in natural wool with one row of pink somewhere. I dunno. We'll see!

What's done, and what's gone?

I left my knitting at my mom's house.

:(

I had to start something new.


:)

I started working on a couple new pairs of mittens, and I started a new pair of socks.  I also made a test of spinning my camel down and plying with the yak/merino I have.  I knitted a swatch and OOOOOOM'Goodness.  so soft.  I think I know what I will do next!  I have a bit of attention deficit when it comes to spinning thin.  It takes forever to do it and I get bored and set it down.  then when i pick it back up again, I don't have the same rhythym...so i end up with tiny skeins of yarn spun and plied thin.  I think this might become my thing.  I will make small things.  It might be the only way...unless...

I get a spinning wheel?

Wishful thinking, but yes, I think this would help.  I would be able to spin faster, not get bored, and then make really awesome and cool stuff.  Anyone wish to fund my desire to finish what I start?  I'll make you something cool, gorgeous, funky, classic, etc, whatever you want??

Ok.

I tried.

Peasoup

  

I finished spinning and plying my fractal 2 ply of merino. The colour is pea soup and I had a lot of fun making it. Not only did I enjoy it, but the kids are fighting over who gets something made out of it. One of these days I will photo document the plying process I use, for this I had about 4 metres left of a single at the end, so I wrapped the single around my plying device (paintbrush) and met it with the end of the short single and then plied to the end of the wrap. 

It is still drying, but here are the photos of one of my favourites of the summer:  

I will weigh and measure this once it is dry, but it should be around 50g.

Now...what to make...and for who shall I make it?

What's in my bag

It's that time again...time to choose three projects and stick with them until at least one is complete.  I decided to finish a pair of socks that had had second sock syndrome, and also continue working on my Oh natural mittens.  Plus a bit of spinning...
soooooo, here they are:
Tadpoles socks

The second sock will not look like the first.  I am not patient enough to go looking for the next repletion.  They will be what they are, and they will be just fine.

Here is my spinning project, which is a Merino that is from Uberwench, called peasoup.

I am fractal spinning this batch, in other words, I am using math again.  I split the top in half lengthwise, and spun the first single from one of these halves.  The other half will be split into 3 lengths, and spun end for end.  When the two singles are plied, I will have a nice pattern to my yarn.  At least I hope so.

And finally, the result of my spinning to have a 4 shaded natural wool coloured mitten. 

Guess what?  My math was wrong, and I only have 2.25 of the colours in the final mitten.  I am just finishing the cuff now.  I will make the second mitten to match it, and then I will work on my ratios again, so I can have my whole mitten be the 4 colours that I envision in my head.

So, hopefully by the end of today, I will have 2 new projects in my bag!  Maybe.

Oh! Natural

I had a very lovely weekend with some friends away, at White Point Beach Resort.  Wow, the weather was nice, the water looked amazing (too cold to swim in), and we spent 2 hours outside.  What were us indoor cats up to?  The same thing we do every year...scrapbook and craft together.  We roll into the place we choose (specific criteria MUST be met, most revolves around food), unload our packed full cars, and get right down to business...supper.  After supper we start.  My friends use their time to keep up-to-date on their scrapbooking.  I use the time for whatever I feel like that year.  Some years it was scrapbooking, some years it was quilting, maybe knitting.  This year, I spun wool.

I finished the second ball of my mitten wool, which I will post about soon, because I will be starting to knit the mitts.

But, oh!  I had a vision of mittens with the yarn designed to be gradients of natural wool colours, from the finger tips to the cuff.  There is math involved.  I got to work and spun the singles for a test, to see if I liked the idea, plied them, then knit in the round.  I loved it.  Then I tried to figure out the math.  I weighed the test piece, and added 10g, because the test piece would have been a bit short for mittens.  Then I calculated how much of each colour to use.  This is what I came up with:

5g of White Southdown, 5g of Shetland, 5g of brown Corriedale, and 5g of black Welsh.  The second ply is a blend of oatmeal Blue Faced Leicester and Gotland.  I am just spinning a bunch of it, because I plan to make several mittens out of this (if it all works out like it does in my head).  I spun it up, it went really quickly, and plied it last night.  After wet-setting the ply, this is what it looks like:

The mittens will start from the black welsh, blend into the brown Corriedale, into the grey Shetland, and finally the white SD.  I am trying to decide what colour the thumb will be, so I can quickly spin it up.  I can't wait to knit it!  But oh darn, I have to knit those llama-wool mitts first.  Or....maybe not.

Updating Ravelry

Groups of friends, stashing yarn and handspun fibres, searching for projects, posting the progress.  I use ravelry, mostly to find patterns for what I am thinking of knitting or crocheting, and not fully for what I could use it for.  For those that have not been exposed to ravelry, it is an online "pattern bank" (both free and for fee), with the ability to link all the projects made by ravelry people to the pattern they used, and also by the yarn they used.  So if you have a particular yarn you purchased and you want to see what other people made with it, you can check it out.  There is a friends list, groups, tutorials, patterns, and a yarn database that is very handy.  I do add to my ravelry "queue" things I would like to make "soon", but in reality, I don't actually look at it much.  I make things based on how I feeling, and if I am not inspired to make something I usually don't.  The inspiration has to be both from the yarn, the pattern and who is going to receive the finished product.  For instance, if someone asks me to make something, I am more likely to finish it in a day then I would finish something I am making for myself or my family.  The inspiration, is that it will make the person happy.  You are asking, "why would you not want to make your family happy?".  I do.  But they are the receivers of lots of knitted goods, and they can wait.

I was going through my ravelry projects, and saw that I had not posted photos of the some of the work I had done.  So I dug out what I could and the plan is to update ravelry with them today.  For now, you can see what's up, right here in this blog.

This is Calvin and Hobbes...Hobbes was the first thing I made using Intarsia, and frankly, I didn't understand how to do it right, so he has some flaws...Calvin doesn't mind.

 

This is yarn I made for mittens, see the previous blog post.

 

 

 

This is the fibre I am spinning right now to make the second ball, so my mittens match - Blue faced Leicester wool, from Fleece Artist

 

 

This is the llama fibre that makes up the second ply of the yarn, from London-Wul

 

 

My next colour combination of mittens.  I usually always use at least one strand of the Lismore Sheep Farm 2 ply. 

This is the first child sizing I made, to fit a 8 year old, made from New Zealand Possum and Lismore Sheep Farm wool

 

This is a Ladies size, made form some wool and alpaca blends.

 

My first pair, the test, to fit me, made from hand painted Lismore Sheep Farm Wool and a fluffy 1 ply purple yarn.

 

I am spinning some black welsh, will be used in my series of natural wool only (no dyes) mittens.

 

This is a fun spin, yak and merino, on my first supported spindle which I love.

A large child size in the works (these are now completed)

 

My waves top, that I haven't touched since returning home from Italy.

 

I picked up this Massam fibre...spun a bit and knitted it to see how I like it.  This will make a great addition to a mitten, as it is very strong (usually used in rug making)

 

I also have this new bit of dyed Merino from Uberwench, purchased at The Loop Craft Café.

 

 

So, this stuff will be updated to Ravelry sometime...and maybe I'll try to keep it up to date!

Mitten yarn

I have a small dilemma with my knitting bag. There are 3 of them. Since returning from a month overseas, I have not touched any of my old projects, other than the spindles. Although, with the spindles the focus was to make them empty so I could make something else. I do not feel inspired to work on my old UFOs. They will have to wait.  Like I mentioned in a previous post, I am perfecting an original design mitt. Now I am coming up with sizes. The goal will be to make well-fitting mittens for gifts, for purchase, whatever.  As I have quite a stash of yarn, I can make a lot of mittens!   Heh. Not. Good. Enough. I want to make my own yarn for the mittens. When I have an idea I want to try, I have to try it. I am not satisfied with putting ideas aside. I made a mitten yarn for my mitten pattern. I can't wait to knit it. Here it is. 

This is the plied yarn on my spindle. It consists of a llama single (from roving i purchased at london-wul) and a dyed blue faced Leicester single (fleece artist).  Plied to make a bulky weight yarn. The llama is what I am excited about!  So I have to make an identical batch of this, so my mittens have the same colour pattern.  For now I have this one.

Making a skein so I can set the ply. 

The finished skein is soft and wonderful,  it is almost dry. Then I start the next one!

Maybe one day I will get back to my UFOs.

Blueberry rake

I am on a mission. I am going to attempt to DIY all tools needed for preparing fibre.  Why, you might ask?  Because to buy hand carders or combs or a hackle or a spinning wheel, you must be rich or a good business person who can write off such tools of the trade. For me, as a person who loves hobbies, I find it expensive and unnecessary. But also necessary. Which is it, make up your mind, you are asking?  Well the tools are necessary if I wish to take this hobby which I love, to a new more artistic level. Spending a lot of money?  No. So, I am going to attempt this, and you will follow me along.  Right?  Uh.  Please?

Tonight, I made this...

A teeny bit of blueberry rake blended fibre. I have wanted to try my own custom blend of colour and fibre, and have done this with the trick of pseudo rolags, but I wasn't quite satisfied with the consistency, especially when I used various fibre types. Sooooo, I have been looking at plans and photos of hackles and combs. I bought the nails today to make my own, then I thought of the blueberry rake!  It worked great!  Well, it could have been greater, but the the rake was rusty, and my fibre stuck to the rust on the times.  That meant I wasted a bit.  Anyway, I spun what I blended, and plied it with an angora single I had laying around.  If I can find a non-rusty blueberry rake I will better document what I did.  In the meantime, I am still going to build my own "proper" set!!