Spinning

I've finished the Arco Iris spinning!  The finished skein is 442 yards of chain plied, fingering weight yarn.  Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while have probably noticed that these colors aren't the ones I usually use.  You don't see very much muddy, yellow green around here!  For one thing I can't wear this kind of color at all with the cool undertones to my skin color, for another thing, I'm not drawn to colors like this either (which could be related to the first reason).  

When I ordered the fiber in Arco Iris, I had no idea what it would look like, Malabrigo being known for it's inconsistency in dyeing.  (Also, all of these colors are totally within the range for iris, so it's not like it's that crazy.)  I decided not to return it, but to use it to push myself a little bit, using colors I don't usually work with, and trying not to make the colors any more muddy than they already were.  It definitely got me out of my comfort zone, and I'm happy with the way the chain plying kept the colors intact.  What will I do with it?  Well, yellow green is the complement of red violet and I definitely use those colors.  It could be the perfect accent for something where magenta or fuchsia is the main color.  For now, I'm happy with the spinning!

My next spinning project is filled with more familiar colors.  This is Merino/Tencel (50/50) in the Arcade colorway from Greenwood Fiberworks. I spun some Merino Tencel years ago when I was just learning to spin and found it to be super slippery.  Silk has more texture than Tencel.  I avoided it for quite a while, but I decided to give it another try now that I feel more confident in my spinning.  

The other thing I'm working on with this braid is moving back and forth evenly across the fiber as I spin.  I didn't split the fiber or do any predrafting (the prep is lovely and really doesn't need it) so if I don't spin each color completely as I come to it, I will muddy the colors.  Spinning evenly back and forth across the end of the fiber is something I need to get better at and hopefully this braid will help me learn.  I'm spinning for a finished, chain plied fingering weight again on this project.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Another Shawl

I decided to cast on another mosaic shawl so I could have another project to alternate with the Letho Cardigan.  I realized that I had some Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light in my stash in Natural and Flycatcher Blue which would be perfect for the 4-ever in Blue Jeans shawl. 

I'm just into the mosaic colorwork section now so while the rows are getting long, there's stuff happening and they seem to knit up pretty quickly.  I may change my tune when I get a little farther though!

A New Cardigan!

I've started a new cardigan and this one is unlike any cardigan I've knit before!  The pattern is Letho and not only is it knit sideways (each half from the cuff to center back and then joined) it's got a lot of other things going on too.  It has brioche and welts and some simple stranded colorwork and mosaic.  All in one sweater!

So far I've started the first sleeve but you can see the brioche on the cuffs (this is my first time working single color brioche) and just above the cuffs are the welts and the simple colorwork sections.  My main color is Squoosh Ultra Worsted in Event Horizon and I'm using Malabrigo Rios in Lettuce and Gris for the contrast colors.  The Lettuce is just used in the welting and the Gris is the colorwork and will be the mosaic later.  The funny thing is I had bought both colors of the Malabrigo for suckers on Levi's tentacles - the Lettuce was the first color I bought but I was afraid it would overwhelm the whole octopus and all you'd see would be tentacles so I ordered the Gris and that's what I used instead.  Now they're being used together in the same cardigan.

The construction and all the different knitting techniques make this an interesting knit, but since the majority of it is solid stockinette, it's not overwhelmingly complex.  I did do a gauge swatch and will be keeping an eye on that as I knit because that seems even more important than usual since I'm working the whole cardigan sideways.

Have a great weekend!

Finished Mosaic and Finished (Singles) Spinning

I finished my Walk in the Woods shawl and gave it a little steam blocking.  I'm thrilled with this shawl and the mosaic section was really fun to knit.  I used up almost all of my skein of pink but I have more than half a skein of the pale gray with speckles left.  I love it, so I've already been planning how to use it!

I also finished spinning my Arco Iris singles.  I have to sit down and chain ply them but I'll either have to do it on a day where I can do it in one sitting or I'll have to set up the wheel in the sewing room so I can close the door and do it in several bites of time.  I'm leaning more towards the sewing room option right now.

I've started another mosaic project, but I'd like to get a little farther before I show it to you.  See you Thursday!

More Mosaic and More Spinning!

I've been knitting away on my mosaic wrap.  I feel like the stitch pattern is more visible the more I knit.  If I had used two solid colored yarns with high contrast, it might have been more obvious from the beginning, but the pale gray has speckles (which I love) and there is a fuchsia speckle in there.  I'm really happy with the way this is looking and it's really fun to knit.  I weighed the pink before I started this section and I weighed it again after I finished the first repeat.  Each repeat takes a little bit more yarn than the last, but this should give me something to judge how far I can go.  Hopefully.

I've also been spinning away on my Arco Iris singles.  I'm almost halfway through the fiber now.  There was a bit of an incident last Friday - Newton played with the bobbin of singles.  I don't know if he used it as a scratching post or just messed around with it (he considers the world his scratching post), but when I looked at it Friday afternoon my bobbin of neatly wound singles had chunks of loopy places and wasn't neat anymore.  I didn't see any breakage of the singles and when I started spinning again I laid a narrow strip of card stock along the bobbin lengthwise, to keep the new (properly tensioned) singles from sinking into the sections where things weren't as they should be.  Hopefully this will make things easier when I ply.  The spinning wheel is now being put away where a certain kitty can't get to it.

I've had to do more "child-proofing" with this cat than I ever did with Caleb when he was a baby!

Mosaic and Spinning

I've begun the mosaic portion of my wrap.  This kind of knitting seems to fly off the needles because it's so much fun to watch the pattern develop.  Also, you can see how much bigger Mr. Newton has gotten!  He's 10 months old now, and yes, he was about to bite my yarn when I took the picture.  We're still working on a few things around here.  

I've also started a new spinning project for the new year!  This is Malabrigo Nube (100% Merino) in Arco Iris.  When I've spun other colorways of Nube I've just divided it into thirds and spun the singles on three bobbins, then plied them to make a three ply yarn.  This particular colorway has more going on than Aquas, Zarzamora, and English Rose, so I decided to chain ply it to keep the colors from getting muddy.  I think I'll be happier with the finished yarn this way.  I'm spinning the singles to 50 wpi for a fingering weight finished yarn.

Have a great weekend!  Stay warm!

New Year! New Yarnathon! New Craft-along!

With the start of 2021 a new Yarnathon started along with a brand new Craft-along for the first quarter!  I'm on the Fiber Flock team, which is a flamingo.  I can't tell you how much this amuses me for some reason, nor can I explain why, but for some reason, being a tall pink bird really cracks me up.

ESK is calling the quarterly KAL's "Craft-alongs" this year because they're including crochet and knitting as much as they possibly can.  The first quarter's theme is Mosaic knitting or crochet.  I've started my first project already, a Walk in the Woods shawl in fingering weight.  The pattern is written for worsted weight, but there are a few fingering weight projects already, so I decided to use that weight.  (You don't need too many worsted weight wraps here in Texas.)  I'm using a Shawl Duo from Wonderland Yarns in the colorway Glowingly.  You can see the two skeins above.  This pinky, red-violet color apparently means happiness and hope to me because I'm knitting with it, my 2021 planner is that color, and so is my nail polish (at the moment).  I didn't really plan it that way, I just kind of looked around and realized I'd surrounded myself with it!

I've gotten a good start with my shawl.  I've got to weigh it and do a stitch count before I start knitting again, but I think I'm almost to the mosaic section (it's actually a little farther along than the photo shows because I photographed it yesterday afternoon and then worked on it some more last night.)  I've done some mosaic knitting before.  Most recently, the Sharon Show MKAL from last August and September.  It's a fun technique and as long as you don't work too tightly, an easy way to add colorwork!  I've never tried mosaic crochet before and I have no idea how easy or hard that is.  I may have to take a look at that!

A Finished Sweater For the New Year!

I finished my Fireworks sweater!  I actually finished the knitting on Wednesday, and then last night I sewed down the pocket and wove in all the ends.  It had been steam blocked long before midnight, so this morning it was dry and ready for wearing in this new year!

The pattern is Ambiente although I used a K2, P2 rib for my neckband, hem, and cuffs instead of the stitch she called for in the pattern.  The yarn is handspun from the Fireworks fiber I got from Etsy.  I did do the pocket this time, but it's not photographing very well.  It shows up better in real life.  Apparently I started this sweater in July, but I took my time with it and life interfered with my knitting as well.  

I'm really happy with how this turned out and I'll be wearing it later today.  I'll also be doing some stash diving this weekend and choosing a new spinning project as well as getting started on the new ESK Yarnathon for 2021!

Happy New Year!!