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.

Gauge Gauge Gauge

I've been doing a lot of swatching over the last couple weeks preparing for three projects.

1. The plarn trench coat which, you may recall, was one of this year's goals. I pulled out the pattern to try out the stitch pattern. Not even close to gauge, and not very pretty.

The mushy looking part at the bottom is in the stitch design from the pattern. Yuck!

So then I started mixing it up with crochet hook sizes and other stitch combinations. I still wasn't getting close enough to gauge. I've requested a pattern book from the library that contains another trench coat pattern. It's written for bulky yarn so I'm hoping I can get it to work.

2. I got going on the plan to knit the Bella's Mittens out of the wool from the J Crew sweater. Since I had no real information about the weight of the wool from the sweater, I thought it was especially important to check the gauge. I started with the needle size recommended by the pattern and got gauge with the first try! That's how I'm used to it working out!

So I merrily knitted away on the mittens. And despite getting gauge right on, they were a little small! That means either the pattern didn't list the right gauge or I have bigger hands than most. In any case, I did two things to compensate: first, I added some length to the top of the mitten and to the thumb. Secondly, I stretched them a bit when blocking. They're still drying, but I think they'll be good. I'll give you a look at them after I've gotten some good pics.

3. And, finally I got some new needles in the mail and could try some more on my Whistler swatch. It hasn't been straight forward. Here's my swatch piece of eight sections trying out different needles in plain and colourwork:
I'm aiming for 24 sts to 4". Starting at the bottom, I have gotten

1. 26 sts on aluminum US #3s

2. 24 sts on aluminum US #3s in continental style. Right gauge but very uneven in tension. It wasn't pretty!

3. 23 sts on metal 3.75mms

4. 23 sts on aluminum US #4s

5. 24 sts on bamboo US #3/3.25mms

Yeah! I finally got gauge on the plain stocking stitch section. (And with one of the new needles thus justifying the purchase!)

Now the colourwork section requires a different gauge and the pattern recommends moving up a size to get it. The pattern didn't specify the stitch gauge but wants 28 rows to 4".

6. 24 rows on bamboo US #4 (22.5 sts/4")

7. 24 rows on bamboo US #3 (24 sts/4")

8. 28 rows on bamboo US #2 (26 sts/4")

Ok, so the final size gives the right row gauge, but I don't like that the stitch gauge doesn't match the stocking stitch section. :sigh: Plus it means that I actually had to go down a size, instead of up like the pattern calls for. Doesn't feel right.

I've put it aside for now and posted the question on the Dale of Norway group on Ravelry. Hopefully the peeps there will be able to help.

I Got My Pattern!

Remember the pattern I was searching for in this post? I received it from the fellow Raveler I had asked! (She says I'm lucky because she normally doesn't save the patterns she downloads but she still had this one. Phew!) And it looks so worth the extra work it took to get it.

I knit a 40-stitch swatch on Monday to confirm which size needles I wanted to use and what gauge I got with them. I knew the wool I wanted to use was thinner than what the pattern called for. And even though we all know swatches lie, they can help to get you in the ball park.

In addition to making changes to account for the swatch, I also have to make changes for the size. The (free) pattern is only available in the size the designer made for herself: too small for me. So I added a few inches based on the measurements of my Sahara which has a similar fit.

I got it cast on Monday night (all 212 stitches :mops brow:) with the crochet cast on. I didn't like how the ribbing looked on my swatch so I'm planning to change the bottom edge to a folded picot hem. This meant I needed some nice stitches along the cast on edge to knit. If you don't get why, you can be sure I will show you all the details in a future post. I just have to get there first!

I did want to pass on a tip for making a better join. It's so easy when you join in the round for the first stitch to be very loose, sloppy, and dare I say ugly. What I do to try to improve this stitch is to slip it, and then knit it up when I come back around to that spot, like knitting up a dropped stitch. Hmm...words are so inadequate. I will try a few pics to see if that will help.

[You will notice that I did not take pictures of the very first row which is where you would implement this trick, but I think you will get the point nonetheless.]

So you cast on your stitches and are about to knit the very first stitch which will make your work a circle instead of a line. Instead of knitting it, slip it to the right needle (purlwise) and knit the next stitch pulling the yarn firmly.

When you get back to this point after knitting a round, you will come to the slipped stitch (black arrow) and behind it will be an extra loop of yarn (red arrow):

Now you don't want to leave that loop of yarn flapping in the back; you want to knit it up. So, insert the tip of your left needle to pick up the loop:

Then insert the tip of your right needle into the slipped stitch (purlwise):
And pass the slipped stitch over the loop of yarn:
You have just knit up the loop as if you had dropped a stitch. You are now ready to knit away on your project:

So you see that this will tighten the first stitch and hopefully prevent it from stretching out and looking...can't think of a delicate way to say this...just plain ugly. (I will allow no ugliness on my Pencil Sketch Camisole.)