Knitting:
Three pairs of Madness socks
One handspun sweater
One stashbusting laptop bag (not blogged, and the buttons aren't sewn on yet, but screw it)
Four Annises (Anni?) (also not blogged because I am planning a massive six-fold FO post for these babies)
Spinning:
Four miles of purple singles
Mermaid yarn
Not bad for three months. But that's all I've got today - six days and two Anni left to do. See you later!
So...it's now T = -9 days and I have three out of six Annis done (two blocked even!) and have started #4. Things that I have learned along the way:
Backwards loop cast on is a good stretchy edge, but makes the first row a bit dodgy
Malabrigo lace is gorgeous soft stuff, but can make some really impressive yarn barf
Just say no to nupps (at least when you're going for speed)
And finally...my husband really doesn't understand how important it is that I not be required to drive anywhere for the next week plus. That's key knitting time!
waves and dives back into lace knitting/short row fray, not to be heard from again until Le Tour starts
So I'm full in to the rush of knitting six different versions of Annis by July 7th, but really the deadline is July 3rd, because that's when the Tour de Fleece/Tour de France starts. My goal for the TdF is to spin up at least three of the seven lbs of Hello Yarn Fiber Club I have sitting around. Here's the status of the pile as of March:
Since then, there has been two further shipments (one more pound) added. So Something Must Be Done.
But, as I said, there's some scarf knitting to be done in the meantime. So here's the last spinny bit for a while: Dev's Mermaid Yarn, spun from top that she dyed herself, destined for some sort of top-down yoke sweatery thing.
Spun/plied at 12:1, short forward draw, about 300 yds from 8 oz. That's some dense yarn! But there's a lovely pink bit showing up there - I'll have to figure out how to get it front and center on the sweater.
I split the top in half lengthwise and spun two bobbins starting from opposite ends - as you can see, one end was a lot darker then the other, and I wanted to try and minimize the dark-to-light variation. It was a fairly easy spin - a bit of felting/sticking in spots, but I predrafted a bit to loosen up the fibers and it went smoothly. I plied pretty tightly in order to get some good bounce in the finished yarn and then soaked in warm water. In fact, I put the yarn in warm water and forgot about it until the next morning, so it got a really good soaking...
So that's it on the spinning until the prologue. I'm thinking about going in chronological order, starting with Mollusc Wensleydale (August 2007!).
I even have a plan for this fiber: laceweight singles to make an Anne Hanson shawl. Either the Honeybee Stole, which I already have the pattern for, or one of the Raven ones she's done. After I finish that, I've got 8 oz of Insect Wings(somehow I don't have a photo of this fiber, so I'm pointing you towards the HYFC pool) to do up. Not sure what form that will take though - anyone have any suggestions? After Insect Wings is some more Norway, and then Five Plum Pie. And then Sour Fig. If I can get through those, I'll be a happy camper! And there will be space in the bin for April, May and June's installments (1.5 more pounds - ulp!).
An unexpected upside to living in the UK: when Interweave sends out a sneaky email about the Hurt Book sale at 11:20 am my time, all my knitterly competitors in the States are likely still asleep. My bank account is now somewhat lighter, and my mother is going to have to deal with a large, heavy box of stitch dictionaries (I got almost every Harmony guide available, even the crochet one!) and some of Franklin's cartoons. I think I'll need a extra bag for our trip this summer to haul all this loot back. Plus some cashola for the heavy bag charge...
There is knitting being done: I have decided on Annis as the teacher present for this year, partly because I think it's lovely, but mostly because I did one and it took me four days. That would have been three days if I hadn't mucked up the stockinette section (only I would do this...). So Numero Dos is on the needles in this, with some modifications for slightly short yardage. First one was 340 yds, and I've only got 305 yds of the handspun, but I think it will be ok. Expect an Annis Rainbow post sometime around the end of the term.
Well, that was fun.
Started with 2 lbs of fiber.
Spun the singles at 7.5:1, semi-longdraw from the fold.
Stage 1 Plying, at 12:1
Stage 2 Plying, also at 12:1.
Final numbers: 8 big skeins and one mini-skein of 4-ply cabled yarn. Total yardage: 1745 yds/1.83 lbs (29.3 oz) of finished yarn. Holy shit, that's almost four miles of singles. Dooooooode!
I cannot believe how long this took to do. Granted, I had a few other big projects in there (the Knitting Olympics springs to mind), and I got so sick of those singles that it was hard to keep making progress on them. But I wanted to get all the singles spun up at once, so I could then ply the first bobbin with the last, the second with the second-to-last, and so on. In hopes of evening out any, ehem, alterations in the spinning.
And after all that sampling I did, my grist was all over the place. Here's the list:
Skein 1: 970 ypp
Skein 2: 984 ypp
SKein 3: 955 ypp
Skein 4: 875 ypp
Skein 5: 982 ypp
Skein 6: 1001 ypp
Skein 7: 842 ypp ***The Winner!***
Skein 8: 911 ypp
Mini-skein 9: 1984 ypp
The goal, as you probably don't recall, was 840 ypp. I'm not sure why it didn't come out closer, but maybe I didn't finish (full) the final yarns enough to get them to plump up? I may try pulling out the skeins that are pretty close (1-5 and 8, about 1200 yds) and try a swatch with those to see how it looks. The other alternatives are 1) running things back through the wheel to add more plying twist and finishing again or 2) just trying to full those lighter skeins a bit more and see if they plump up.
In any event, I am breathing a huge sigh of relief and accomplishment. Sheeit, that was a lot of purple fiber. Worst case scenario: I knit the sweater, it comes out too small, and I give it to my Mom, who has made appreciative noises over both the fiber and the pattern.