Leaf Peeper Cowl
I've designed a little cowl with some of the Leaf Peepers BFL I spun up this summer.
Lemme explain...no, no, is too much, lemme sum up.
Well. When last we spoke, I had just taken delivery of a copious amount of fiber and was preparing to abandon ship for the wildness of Pembrokeshire for the weekend. Having now come out the other side, I have many things to say.
I started my day here, which seemed to be appropriate in the sense that I was embarking on an unknown voyage...sadly, I had no marmelade in my luggage for sustenance.
My train was filled with a disturbing number of men in kilts who were really interested in starting the day with a beer at 10:30 am.
I chose a capuccino...I think I missed a memo or something.
I started a hat, thinking that I would manage to finish it well before the end of the weekend.
I was wrong (although it did get finished in the end!). The kilts seemed to clear off at Cardiff Central, and I continued westward. Next stop Swansea,
and then Whitland, where mostly everyone else had stopped and gotten picked up for the hotel.
Sadly, the necessity of my getting kids to school meant that I arrived last, and had to continue onward on my own to the train station with a taxi rank.
(hello blurry cell phone photo out of the window of a moving car)
There seems to be a generalized assumption that knitters are really just very nice people. Sort of like Minnesotans or Canadians... Nothing I experienced this past weekend at Plug and Play Pembrokeshire (P3) 2012 would argue with that assumption. I have to admit to a bit of trepidation as my cab pulled up to the hotel on Friday afternoon*, particularly as I was about to meet two people who have (unbeknownst to them) played a large role in my knitting life/obsession over the past seven years. However, I walked in just as tea and biscuits were arriving, and was warmly welcomed into the fold. And once I got over the fact that I was listening to Brenda Dayne's voice come out of an actual person instead of from my iPod, the weekend swept me up and away for the next three days.
For the summing up: there was yarn. Lots and lots of yarn. Lots of gorgeous beyond belief yarn.
There was gorgeous, glorious scenery, which I completely failed to photograph because I'm an asshole. Then there were the classes. Classes on shawl design, on top-down raglans, on how to fit small blocks of stitch patterns onto variously shaped canveses. Classes on embracing randomness in your knitting**, classes on knitting with unspun roving pulled from silk hankies. Class after class after class...
There were overwhelming amounts of really good food. And beer. And cider. And (apparantly) Scotch. There were people from England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Canadia, the US, and from as far away as New Zealand (I think). There were 29 women and one very, very brave man ("There's always one man..."). There was a completely delicious three month old baby. There were Today's Sweater stories that made me laugh so hard I cried. There was a double barreled ukelele singalong before twenty five people in their PJs gathered around the telly in the hotel pub to knit whilewatching yelling at Downton Abbey***.
All in all, I'd have to say that the weekend was made of win in every possible way. I'm thrilled to have met so many truly wonderful people. It was amazing to have three days to myself to basically sit around and knit the entire time****. It's taken me a couple of days to come back from that mindset, and it's been rough: the ability to hang out with a group of people who are all interested in the thing that you are interested in and have really cool ideas and projects and plans and suchlike is intoxicating. Strangely enough, my family does not seem to be as enthralled by a debate on the proper kind of increase to use in a top-down triangular shawl or how to keep even tension while grafting. Wierdos...
If anyone reading this evey has a chance to go to West Wales to hang out with Amy and Brenda (and presumably a hotel-full of other amazing fibery people), you should absolutely positively go. It was absolutely fantastic, and I can't wait to go back next year!
* Derek, my cab driver from the train station in Haverfordwest, was vehement in his belief that this whole "knitting retreat weekend" was a cover up for something much more diabolical. I told him we were actually planning on taking over the world. He thought I was kidding.
** My inner scientist is still curled up in a ball in the corner whimpering from that one...
*** The bartender was so far out of his element as to perhaps be the proverbial Anthropologist on Mars.
**** I may or may not have arrived home depleted of any urge to knit one more row.
I started my day here, which seemed to be appropriate in the sense that I was embarking on an unknown voyage...sadly, I had no marmelade in my luggage for sustenance.
My train was filled with a disturbing number of men in kilts who were really interested in starting the day with a beer at 10:30 am.
I chose a capuccino...I think I missed a memo or something.
I started a hat, thinking that I would manage to finish it well before the end of the weekend.
I was wrong (although it did get finished in the end!). The kilts seemed to clear off at Cardiff Central, and I continued westward. Next stop Swansea,
and then Whitland, where mostly everyone else had stopped and gotten picked up for the hotel.
Sadly, the necessity of my getting kids to school meant that I arrived last, and had to continue onward on my own to the train station with a taxi rank.
(hello blurry cell phone photo out of the window of a moving car)
There seems to be a generalized assumption that knitters are really just very nice people. Sort of like Minnesotans or Canadians... Nothing I experienced this past weekend at Plug and Play Pembrokeshire (P3) 2012 would argue with that assumption. I have to admit to a bit of trepidation as my cab pulled up to the hotel on Friday afternoon*, particularly as I was about to meet two people who have (unbeknownst to them) played a large role in my knitting life/obsession over the past seven years. However, I walked in just as tea and biscuits were arriving, and was warmly welcomed into the fold. And once I got over the fact that I was listening to Brenda Dayne's voice come out of an actual person instead of from my iPod, the weekend swept me up and away for the next three days.
For the summing up: there was yarn. Lots and lots of yarn. Lots of gorgeous beyond belief yarn.
There was gorgeous, glorious scenery, which I completely failed to photograph because I'm an asshole. Then there were the classes. Classes on shawl design, on top-down raglans, on how to fit small blocks of stitch patterns onto variously shaped canveses. Classes on embracing randomness in your knitting**, classes on knitting with unspun roving pulled from silk hankies. Class after class after class...
There were overwhelming amounts of really good food. And beer. And cider. And (apparantly) Scotch. There were people from England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Canadia, the US, and from as far away as New Zealand (I think). There were 29 women and one very, very brave man ("There's always one man..."). There was a completely delicious three month old baby. There were Today's Sweater stories that made me laugh so hard I cried. There was a double barreled ukelele singalong before twenty five people in their PJs gathered around the telly in the hotel pub to knit while
All in all, I'd have to say that the weekend was made of win in every possible way. I'm thrilled to have met so many truly wonderful people. It was amazing to have three days to myself to basically sit around and knit the entire time****. It's taken me a couple of days to come back from that mindset, and it's been rough: the ability to hang out with a group of people who are all interested in the thing that you are interested in and have really cool ideas and projects and plans and suchlike is intoxicating. Strangely enough, my family does not seem to be as enthralled by a debate on the proper kind of increase to use in a top-down triangular shawl or how to keep even tension while grafting. Wierdos...
If anyone reading this evey has a chance to go to West Wales to hang out with Amy and Brenda (and presumably a hotel-full of other amazing fibery people), you should absolutely positively go. It was absolutely fantastic, and I can't wait to go back next year!
* Derek, my cab driver from the train station in Haverfordwest, was vehement in his belief that this whole "knitting retreat weekend" was a cover up for something much more diabolical. I told him we were actually planning on taking over the world. He thought I was kidding.
** My inner scientist is still curled up in a ball in the corner whimpering from that one...
*** The bartender was so far out of his element as to perhaps be the proverbial Anthropologist on Mars.
**** I may or may not have arrived home depleted of any urge to knit one more row.
Jackpot!
On Wednesday, I spent most of the morning waiting for the dishwasher repair man - the extremely helpful time slot they gave me was 7:00 am - 3:00 pm. Once he arrived, deduced the fact that the motor on the dishwasher is broken, and managed to rebook an appointment to fix it for a week and a half from now (making it three weeks I will have been washing dishes by hand - grrrr....), I had pretty much written off the rest of the day as a complete loss.
Royal Mail to the rescue! (And belive me, those are not words that I every thought I'd say!) Not 5 minutes after he left, the doorbell rang - there were two big squooshy packages for me.
Package number 1:
What's inside?
Some undyed fiber from The Wool Gathering: 100 grams of lovely, soft, white Suffolk.
And a kilo of Romney - I have been searching for UK-sourced Romney for months, and am so thrilled to have finally found some! I love the bags the fiber is packed in too: I think I will be ordering from them again, maybe some of their British alpaca...
Package number 2: I must first preface this by saying that I always miss Adrian's updates. But on two occasions now, I've gotten lucky and happened to be over at her site when there were Fiber Club extras on sale. A couple weeks ago I fell off the metaphorical wagon in a major way, and ended up with this arriving at my door.
The September fiber club, Critter on Falkland (yum!),
And another 1.5 lb of fiber: 3 bags of Splendid Romney and 3 bags of Silt Portuguese Merino.
Swoon-tastic. Now my dilemma is how to combine them. I was originally going to spin up the Splendid by itself and knit myself another Romney sweater, but looking at the two of them together makes me think that maybe they want to make little yarn babies?
The other possibility is pairing Silt with my two bags of Minerals Shetland (and who knows what else might jump into the mix? There's a lot of Hello Yarn-dyed fiber in my attic....) and knitting a swoopy wrappy cardigan type thing. Or a Larch like Caro's. Or a Spoked Cardigan like Rose's. So many sweaters, so little time...guess I'd better start spinning!
Sadly, sweater-lot spinning will have to wait until after this weekend, because by the time this posts, I will be happily ensconced BY MYSELF on a train on my way to West Wales for Plug-and-Play Pembrokeshire, round deux. Expect much yarn/swatch/knitters-being-wacky evidence next week. Cheers!
Royal Mail to the rescue! (And belive me, those are not words that I every thought I'd say!) Not 5 minutes after he left, the doorbell rang - there were two big squooshy packages for me.
Package number 1:
What's inside?
Some undyed fiber from The Wool Gathering: 100 grams of lovely, soft, white Suffolk.
And a kilo of Romney - I have been searching for UK-sourced Romney for months, and am so thrilled to have finally found some! I love the bags the fiber is packed in too: I think I will be ordering from them again, maybe some of their British alpaca...
Package number 2: I must first preface this by saying that I always miss Adrian's updates. But on two occasions now, I've gotten lucky and happened to be over at her site when there were Fiber Club extras on sale. A couple weeks ago I fell off the metaphorical wagon in a major way, and ended up with this arriving at my door.
The September fiber club, Critter on Falkland (yum!),
And another 1.5 lb of fiber: 3 bags of Splendid Romney and 3 bags of Silt Portuguese Merino.
Swoon-tastic. Now my dilemma is how to combine them. I was originally going to spin up the Splendid by itself and knit myself another Romney sweater, but looking at the two of them together makes me think that maybe they want to make little yarn babies?
The other possibility is pairing Silt with my two bags of Minerals Shetland (and who knows what else might jump into the mix? There's a lot of Hello Yarn-dyed fiber in my attic....) and knitting a swoopy wrappy cardigan type thing. Or a Larch like Caro's. Or a Spoked Cardigan like Rose's. So many sweaters, so little time...guess I'd better start spinning!
Sadly, sweater-lot spinning will have to wait until after this weekend, because by the time this posts, I will be happily ensconced BY MYSELF on a train on my way to West Wales for Plug-and-Play Pembrokeshire, round deux. Expect much yarn/swatch/knitters-being-wacky evidence next week. Cheers!
Whisper cardigan progress
This is what one hank of Malabrigo lace gets you if you are knitting the medium size of the Whisper Cardigan by Hannah Fettig.
The entire back, the ribbing, a bit of each of two sleeves and about 4 inches of the body. Not too shabby. I've got an entire hank to go, so I should be able to make this as long as I want and still have enough for the sleeves.
I'm going back and forth on the yarn though - it's knitting up into a lovely fabric, but it felts together if you look at it funny. Or don't look at it and just leave it sitting around for a couple of days. Folks, this stuff felts if air gets on it. Initially I was extremely unenthused by this state of affairs - who wants a sweater that's felted and worn looking before it's even finished? - but it does produce a really lovely halo on the yarn, and fills in the gaps in the stitches caused by knitting laceweight on 4.5 mm needles. I think you can see that in the photo - the section on the top of the picture is slightly felted, while the bottom part is "new", and therefore less felted.
So...I'd say the jury is still out (I certainly wouldn't knit anything for someone that would ever get used with this yarn) (or give it to someone who didn't understand the Finer Intricacies of Handwashing Your Woolens), but I'm thinking it will be ok in a cozy, lightweight layer of a sweater for me. Stay tuned...
The entire back, the ribbing, a bit of each of two sleeves and about 4 inches of the body. Not too shabby. I've got an entire hank to go, so I should be able to make this as long as I want and still have enough for the sleeves.
I'm going back and forth on the yarn though - it's knitting up into a lovely fabric, but it felts together if you look at it funny. Or don't look at it and just leave it sitting around for a couple of days. Folks, this stuff felts if air gets on it. Initially I was extremely unenthused by this state of affairs - who wants a sweater that's felted and worn looking before it's even finished? - but it does produce a really lovely halo on the yarn, and fills in the gaps in the stitches caused by knitting laceweight on 4.5 mm needles. I think you can see that in the photo - the section on the top of the picture is slightly felted, while the bottom part is "new", and therefore less felted.
So...I'd say the jury is still out (I certainly wouldn't knit anything for someone that would ever get used with this yarn) (or give it to someone who didn't understand the Finer Intricacies of Handwashing Your Woolens), but I'm thinking it will be ok in a cozy, lightweight layer of a sweater for me. Stay tuned...
A few thoughts on the Hansen miniSpinner
So I have been the proud owner of a Hansen miniSpinner for just over two weeks now. In that time, I've done my best to put the beast through some of it's paces. Here's the result:
I've done four different fiber types: BFL, Wensleydale, a mixed wool sample that came with the miniSpinner, and Targhee. The final yarns are 2- and 3-plied (no chain plying yet - the thought gives me hives!). My feelings about the miniSpinner are overall positive, but the learning curve is a bit slower then I was expecting.
First off, I'm finding it hard to adjust to a constant rate of twist insertion, to be honest. I think that, on the Lendrum, I unconsciously adjust my treadling speed as needed to get the single/plying twist that "feels right". With the constant speed of the miniSpinner, I'm finding that I'm undertwisting my singles (although that's gotten a lot better) and definitely underplying! Fresh off the Lendrum I get skeins that twist anywhere from 0.5-2 times when hanging free, and they usually end up balanced after finishing. Now I'm getting skeins that are balanced straight off the bobbin, and underspun after finishing. This is something that I'm sure will get better with time as I adjust to the miniSpinner.
The other thing I was expecting was that the miniSpinner was going to dramatically improve my rate of production. Ummm...not so much: I'm definitely faster on the Lendrum then on the miniSpinner. Again, this is something I think will change as I get used to it, and get a better feel for where I should set the speed for spinning and/or plying, but it's not happening as quickly as I was imagining. So I guess I can't be all production spinning quite yet!
Low down on the yarns - Round 1: I had some tail ends of Leaf Peepers BFL lying around, so I spun them on the mS and compared the resulting 2-ply with the 2-ply leftovers from the first batch. Lendrum-spun:
mS-spun:
I think you can see the difference in the two, right? They were both spun worsted-style, from combed top, and finished the same way. The mS-yarn is both overspun and looser and fluffier then the Lendrum-yarn. And much less even - you can see that my drafting is not a smooth on the mS as the Lendrum (i.e. overspun sections next to poofy, underspun bits).
Round 2: This is some Salamander Wensleydale that I've spun up as a gift. Again, much more underplied (and underspun) then my usual, but with a long staple length like Wensleydale, this makes for a lovely, soft, drapey yarn, so this one is a win.
Round 3: there was a teensy puff of lovely greyish pinkish fiber included with the miniSpinner, so I spun that up next. I didn't think too much about what to do with it, just threw it at the wheel (spinner?) and waited to see what came out.
Again, lower twist singles, lower twist plying makes for squishy poofy yarn. Nice, but not my usual default spin by a long shot!
Round 4:
3-ply Golgi Targhee - this is one of the colorway experiments I did before starting up Porpoise Fur, and it's been languishing in the stash ever since. I thought it might make a nice neutral cowl for a Christmas present, so I decided to spin up my default single (~30 wpi) and see if I could get a bulky 3-ply.
This varies from bulky to worsted - the Targhee poof factor has not failed me! And since I'm getting less twist in there, I don't have many of the overtwisted bits that I ended up with the last time I spun Targhee. Still not the most even drafting you've ever seen, but it should be ok when knitted up. I'll have to see if I can get this cast on ASAP.
The verdict is still out on the WooLee Winder - I like not having to stop and change hooks, but it alters the take-up in a way that I'm still getting used to, and I'm not sure I really like... But all in all, the miniSpinner is a big win. If you'll excuse me, I'll go off and finish up Round 5: Southdown!
I've done four different fiber types: BFL, Wensleydale, a mixed wool sample that came with the miniSpinner, and Targhee. The final yarns are 2- and 3-plied (no chain plying yet - the thought gives me hives!). My feelings about the miniSpinner are overall positive, but the learning curve is a bit slower then I was expecting.
First off, I'm finding it hard to adjust to a constant rate of twist insertion, to be honest. I think that, on the Lendrum, I unconsciously adjust my treadling speed as needed to get the single/plying twist that "feels right". With the constant speed of the miniSpinner, I'm finding that I'm undertwisting my singles (although that's gotten a lot better) and definitely underplying! Fresh off the Lendrum I get skeins that twist anywhere from 0.5-2 times when hanging free, and they usually end up balanced after finishing. Now I'm getting skeins that are balanced straight off the bobbin, and underspun after finishing. This is something that I'm sure will get better with time as I adjust to the miniSpinner.
The other thing I was expecting was that the miniSpinner was going to dramatically improve my rate of production. Ummm...not so much: I'm definitely faster on the Lendrum then on the miniSpinner. Again, this is something I think will change as I get used to it, and get a better feel for where I should set the speed for spinning and/or plying, but it's not happening as quickly as I was imagining. So I guess I can't be all production spinning quite yet!
Low down on the yarns - Round 1: I had some tail ends of Leaf Peepers BFL lying around, so I spun them on the mS and compared the resulting 2-ply with the 2-ply leftovers from the first batch. Lendrum-spun:
mS-spun:
I think you can see the difference in the two, right? They were both spun worsted-style, from combed top, and finished the same way. The mS-yarn is both overspun and looser and fluffier then the Lendrum-yarn. And much less even - you can see that my drafting is not a smooth on the mS as the Lendrum (i.e. overspun sections next to poofy, underspun bits).
Round 2: This is some Salamander Wensleydale that I've spun up as a gift. Again, much more underplied (and underspun) then my usual, but with a long staple length like Wensleydale, this makes for a lovely, soft, drapey yarn, so this one is a win.
Round 3: there was a teensy puff of lovely greyish pinkish fiber included with the miniSpinner, so I spun that up next. I didn't think too much about what to do with it, just threw it at the wheel (spinner?) and waited to see what came out.
Again, lower twist singles, lower twist plying makes for squishy poofy yarn. Nice, but not my usual default spin by a long shot!
Round 4:
3-ply Golgi Targhee - this is one of the colorway experiments I did before starting up Porpoise Fur, and it's been languishing in the stash ever since. I thought it might make a nice neutral cowl for a Christmas present, so I decided to spin up my default single (~30 wpi) and see if I could get a bulky 3-ply.
This varies from bulky to worsted - the Targhee poof factor has not failed me! And since I'm getting less twist in there, I don't have many of the overtwisted bits that I ended up with the last time I spun Targhee. Still not the most even drafting you've ever seen, but it should be ok when knitted up. I'll have to see if I can get this cast on ASAP.
The verdict is still out on the WooLee Winder - I like not having to stop and change hooks, but it alters the take-up in a way that I'm still getting used to, and I'm not sure I really like... But all in all, the miniSpinner is a big win. If you'll excuse me, I'll go off and finish up Round 5: Southdown!