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!!  

I'm back

A month in Italy.  It was an amazing trip.  I did not knit or spin or do anything crafty.  But I did get inspired.  The colours, the landscape, the use of space, the coffee, and the sentiments of the Italian people.  Some of the inspiration is bottled in my soul and it will come out in projects, as time passes.  In the meantime, I made a mitten.  An original design that I will be making better when I make the second mitt, which addresses annoying holes where the thumb meets the hand, without a complicated patter.  It took very little time to whip this up, with double strand and 7mm needles from my favorite needle company, the river John needle company.  Handcrafted is always better.

Don't worry, I'll weave in those loose ends!