Second Chances

When I'm knitting, I know I can always take it out. Undo it and start over afresh. (Except with mohair or angora--those are just better to get right the first time.)

I thought spinning was different.

I told you before that I was spinning some grey fibres and was hoping to use one of them with some red cashmere for a pattern. I started spinning some Jacob fibre and it just seemed to want to be thicker than I could use. So I put it aside and spun some Blue Faced Leicester. That was spinning a nice thin thread that I thought would really work.

But it was white and I couldn't let go of the idea of using grey.

I don't remember if I watched the Craftsy class on plying yarn before or after this, but in the class she made the point that you can always go back and respin something to add more twist (or unspin it some if it's too twisted). At some point when I was spinning white fibre and wishing for grey, I tried the grey again and was able to get a much thinner result. So I spun the rest of the grey, but didn't finish the yarn with a soak or a blocking.

What I did do was wind it into a ball and then redid the spinning process. Yes, I had to untwist 3-5 inch sections, draft them and then retwist them, but I have to say it went faster than working from a raw fibre and I was getting the result I wanted.

On the left (above) you can see some of the original yarn and on the right is the newly respun yarn. It made a big difference! I have no idea if this is "allowed" in spinning, but I took the chance that if there are no knitting police and no quilting police (and many people have assured me of this), then there are no spinning police about to bust down my door and take me a way in handcuffs. (At least, they haven't yet.)

In the first spinning I had 75 yards of a yarn the maybe averaged 12 WPI (wraps per inch, a measure of thickness). After the second spinning I had 130 yards of a yarn between 16 and 18 WPI.

I soaked it last night, gave it a couple of good snaps while still damp, hung it to dry and rolled it up this evening:

 I was time to swatch again.

Although it's still not perfect (you can see how the sides bulge out where the grey is), it is much better than my last swatch and I think it is good enough. The grey is used in smaller amounts (no more than four rows at a time) and in places where a bulge won't really harm (sleeve cuffs and cowl collar). The pattern calls for grey stripes at the bottom hem too, but I had already decided to omit it there.

I did most of the respinning in one go on Sunday and didn't realize I was using the same spot on my thumb to pull on the fibre to draft it. By the time I noticed, the whole pad of my thumb tingled and felt numb. Once I was aware of it, I used different areas of my fingers, but my thumb is taking a while to heal. Unfortunately, it's the same area on my thumb that I use to hold a knitting needle so I've had to limit my knitting time this week. Today was pretty good, but it's Wednesday and my thumb still tingles when I push on it! Live and learn.

All. The. Things.

That's what I feel like I'm making. In a sudden burst, it seemed like, once I finished the Wool-Aid socks I was working on (more on those another day). Once they were off the needles it was like everything looked tempting and possible.

I showed you the red cashmere swatch I had started (here) and now I've picked (and even purchased) the pattern. It's an Amy Herzog design called Trimmings. I'll do it with the larger cowl neck and three-quarter length sleeves. Or shorter sleeves if the wool is running out!

Somewhere she suggests doing the contrast colour in some handspun. That caught my attention and I thought, "I don't have any handspun. But I could make some!" So I took the fiber I got for Christmas in a kit (a spindle and 2 oz of three different kinds of wool) and got to spinning.

I had started one batt or roving or sliver or whatever you want to call it while on the Christmas trip and had done a little since then, but not much. I set to it in earnest after having watched the "Spindling" class from Craftsy.com. I learned more by watching the class, but the real thing is to do it.

So I spun some wool and my fingers and hands learned better what to do. By the end I had this:

"I made that." It never gets old. I made that!

 I thought some areas looked pretty good:

 And others were still a little thick and uneven:

I tried knitting some of it onto the top of my previous swatch. (I just undid the bind off, picked up the stitches and knit a few rows.)

You can see that all is not well. The handspun is thicker than the cashmere and either the cashmere gets stretched out or the handspun buckles.

I liked the idea of using grey as the contrast at this point though, and I had another grey batt in my kit. This time Jacob wool instead of Coopworth. No you don't have to remember that, but they were different to spin with. I think the Jacob acted much more like hair.

I could tell pretty quickly that I was not getting a much thinner product with the Jacob wool. It was also going to be too thick. Well, then. I thought I may as well dig into the last batt in the kit--some white Blue Face Leicester. (That last word is pronounce "Lice-ster".) That's the same breed that I knit Troy's sweater out of and I loved working with it.

I started spinning the BFL and got a lot thinner results. I'm still not sure I'm spinning really nice yarn, but it's all a work in progress. Certainly this feels better and drafts more easily than the Jacob for me.

Here are the two side by side:

Top is the grey Jacob. Below is the white BFL.

I am using both "drop spindles" as supported spindles and I enjoy that way of spinning much better. For one thing I can sit more comfortably instead of leaning forward to let the spindle drop in clear space. I put the point into a smallish bowl that is sitting on my lap. I've taken the hook out of both of the spindles because they were catching the yarn too much and now the wool just spins off the top of the stick. Works great.

Here is a close up so you can compare the two:

I have put the Jacob aside for now and I have quite a bit more of the BFL to spin up. Naturally since I am spinning it thinner I am getting a lot more yardarge out of 2 oz and it is taking longer. But I am enjoying it and not in a hurry. Assuming it works with the cashmere, I think the white will be fine with the red cashmere as well. A little different than grey, but still good.

In between all that, I raveled a sweater I picked up at Goodwill:

So much potential released!

The wool felt great and I liked the stripes, but it was far too short and wide for someone to wear. It didn't take long to cast on a sweater for Wool-Aid to work on when I'm out and about.

So far I have a few inches done of the back. I'm making the same pattern as last time (see it here) in one size larger. And don't worry, I'll be adding some stripes very much like the original.

And then in the last day or two, I finally jumped off of the fence I was sitting on and started a swatch for a skirt I've been thinking about since last Squam!

I picked up a book from the "free-take me" table, Modern Knits Vintage Style just because of one skirt pattern. I love the classic look!

I've haven't had a yarn to use for it and also I've been plagued with doubts about whether I need another knitted skirt. (And let's face it, no matter how nicely it comes out, it won't top my Missoni inspired Vogue skirt.) But I threw those thoughts away and got started because I couldn't forget about the idea.

Plus I'm going to Squam again this year so I would love to wear something that resulted from my last trip to Squam.

It also helped that I raveled this sweater that Troy no longer wears:

It's a lovely maroon/burgundy colour and about the right weight for the skirt. I'm not certain I have enough of it to cover what the pattern calls for, but I keep thinking that a sweater has got to have enough yardage for a skirt. (I mean you could pull it on over your hips if your legs could go through the shoulder seams, right?) Worst case scenario, I figure the skirt will be a little shorter than the pattern, but really I think I have enough.

First up was a swatch (because apparently I am being such a responsible knitter these days):

The bottom was done with the smallest size used in the pattern (US2) and the top with the largest (US5). But you may have known that already by the holes I knit in! (Refer to my previous tip, if you are wondering what I'm talking about.)

Once I get the skirt going (math done for size and cast on), I think it will be an easy sail.

So do I have enough projects going? I don't know but I've been enjoying them all. I'm just missing a fabric project. The art gallery in my church is going to display work from the congregation and I wish I had a quilted project to display, but nothing comes to mind. But I did just have someone offer me an old quilt they got years ago wrapped around a bed frame when they bought it! Sounds like it will be worn and used enough to justify cutting it apart and using the pieces. Hmmmm....

Valentine's Day has Passed, but Red is Never out of Season

I probably have more than enough yarn to keep me busy for a while and I can occasionally resist a good thing when I see it. But. Sometimes something is too good to let it go.

Someone on the Ravelry Unravelers group announced that she was destashing all of her sweaters. She used to sell the yarn but she was getting out of it. She had boxes of them. Give her a colour and she would give you a sweater. Four for $10 plus shipping. That's a pretty good deal.

So I asked if she had and true red. Not purple red or orange red, but red red. She said she did. So I said sign me up and these four sweaters winged their way to me via USPS:

All cashmere and three of them very luscious. One didn't feel like "all that" but still good. I gave them all a bath and then I just enjoyed the potential of them. Ok, and enjoyed patting them like bunnies every now and then. I even wore two of them for a day because they fit well enough. But the styles weren't all that flattering on me.

710 grams of cobweb weight cashmere. I couldn't begin
to guess how many metres that is!

And I had plans.

Last weekend I enacted phase one and spent most of my free time on Saturday taking the sweaters apart. Sunday was spent raveling the pieces. Church in the morning was cancelled so I had even more time to do it! (And one station had the Princess Bride on. I realized that is the perfect crafting movie. I don't have to watch to know what is happening, and even if I can't hear it over the whirring of the ball winder, I can recite all the lines myself anyway!)

I didn't quite get it all done Sunday, but was able to finish up on Monday. The only piece that gave me much trouble was the first one. The strand broke at least a dozen times or more. I didn't bother with knots or making it a continuous strand. I just started the new end on the ball winder and kept winding. My plan is to use the four strands at once and if one of the four isn't continuous in a spot, it won't matter. I'll just leave some length on the inside to work in later.

I think that piece was troublesome in part because it was cabled. Where the stitches cross each other, it creates an easy place for the yarn to become tangled or felted together. But the rest of that sweater went fine and the other cabled sweater wasn't nearly so bad. But I had learned and went a little slower on the cable rows.

Once I had all that yarn balled up and organized, I couldn't wait to start knitting with it. I still haven't decided on a pattern, so I thought I'd start with swatching and let my gauge direct where to go with a pattern.

I put a ball from each sweater in a box to manage them and started knitting. You do have to manage the string so that they are kept at an even tension, but it's a lot less work than the alternative of plying them together. In this case, just not worth it to me.

I knit up my swatch and used a tip I just learned from someone:

See those holes from yarnovers on the right side? That tells me which size needle I did that part of the swatch with. Brilliant right? I realized it works a little better with US needle sizes because they're all whole numbers. I have mostly metric needles so whereas the first one is 4mm and the second one is 5mm, I had to modify the code on the top one for 4.5mm. I just put one hole above the row with four holes to indicate the half size. No, I don't know what I'd do for 3.25mm. (Don't need to yet. :) ) It's surprisingly hard to remember which needles you used even when you're sure you won't forget. And yes, making notes is one solution, but it doesn't seem to happen around here!

I think I like the gauge and feel of the top one the best, but it will still partly depend on what pattern I choose. I'm looking at something fitted because I want to make sure I'll have enough yarn. There's one pattern that could use just a little of some handspun so I'm also toying with doing that. Yes, I'm still working on a little spinning! Slowly I am making improvements and it is feeling more natural. Very slowly. But I don't mind. I don't make things by hand to get them done quickly.

For now with this project, I am savouring the possibilities before I settle down. If you have suggestions, I'd love it if you would post it in a comment.