Wallflowers - Hexis Finished!

I finished up the last of the full hexis last night.  Now I just have the half-hexis on the top and the bottom (13 on each edge) and then I can work the border and this will be done!  With the darker yarn I am mostly working on this in the afternoon when I have good natural light.  I have the box with the yarn, with the blanket folded on top next to my daybed so that I can work on it whenever my cat, Jezebel, is not sleeping on it.

She was actually a bit miffed with me last night because after I finished with the hexis I spent the rest of the evening Netflixing and sewing in ends.  I now have all the ends sewn in.  I have been keeping up with the sewing in ends thing, but I would typically wait until I had completed the next part of the project just to make sure I didn’t have to rip back.  If I were keeping to that plan I would not have sewn in the ends for all for my dark purple hexis, but I decided to sew all of them in.

Pattern:  Wallflowers by Sue Maton

Yarn:  Rowan Felted Tweed

Hook:  3.75 mm (F)

 

Garter Stitch Scarf - Finished!

One of the things that the Sheepspot Spinschool recommends is immediately starting to work with your handspun.  As mentioned in a previous blog post I had spun up some roving from Zen Yarn Garden.  It still wasn’t consistently spun, but there were sections that were very good, and I decided to knit it up into a simple garter stitch scarf.  It was very nice to knit with, even with the inconsistent thickness.  I used a US  6 (4.0 mm) needle.  It relaxed a bit when I blocked it.  Here is the pre-blocking picture.

And here is the yarn that I used.

Pattern:  None - just cast on 35 stitches and work until all the yarn is used up

Yarn:  Handspun from Zen Yarn Garden Superwash Merino Roving

Needle:  US 6 (4.0 mm)

 

Dyeing My Handspun

I spent a day last week dyeing up my handspun using the dyeing kit that I had bought from Wool Tincture.  It was super easy, and fun.  The only hiccup came on the last skeins to be dyed (bottom right corner) which came out with some lighter patches, which I am attributing to the fact that I used tap water instead of filtered fridge water - I had used filtered water on all the other batches.  There was even some undissolved dye powder left over in the jar when I dumped the water and rinsed it.  Lesson learned.  The colors are (from left to right and top to bottom):  Turquoise, Eggplant, Deep Water, and Malbec.  This yarn, which is on the bulky side and is not very consistently spun will be turned into a blanket for my cat.  She really likes to lay on my knitting and crochet projects, and has already loved on these skeins.

I set up my dye operations in the spare bathroom.  That is a trivet under the dye jar (part of the instructions).

Here is the first batch of yarn in the dye jar.

First batch on the drying rack, and second batch in.

Second batch on the drying rack and third batch in.

Third batch on the drying rack and fourth batch in.  I modified the arrangement of the drying rack between the second and third batches, to give myself enough room to hang the skeins.  All in all it was a very fun experience.

More Spinning

I’ve also been trying to spin regularly and finished up my first pound of Heinz 57 top from The Woolery, and cracked open the second pound bag of Heinz 57 that I had bought.  These two skeins were spun on a faster whorl (16:1 as opposed to 10:1), which was a bit exciting at times.  They are all tied up and ready for a dye bath.  I purchased a dyeing kit from Wool Tincture, which claims that if you can brew a cup of tea you can dye yarn.  I definitely have mastered tea brewing, so we shall see how that goes.

The kit comes with a dyeing jar (no sacrificing any of your kitchen ware) and you can get pre-measured dye kits in complementary colors, all you have to do is add the hot water and let the magic happen.  No fancy variegated stuff - just solid colors - but that is fine with me.  I just don’t feel like working with white wool.

I also spun up one of the dyed rovings that I bought ages ago when I first thought I would want to go down the spinning rabbit hole.  This was a roving from Zen Yarn Garden, who have recently closed their shop (they retired), although their dyer has opened up one of her own, so you can still get their beautiful colors.  I have a lot of their yarn in my stash.  This roving had been sitting around in its plastic wrap for years in my studio, never finding a home, so I just grabbed it, opened up the package, undid the braid and let it breathe for a few days before I started spinning.  The fiber is superwash merino, and it was dreamy to spin, so silky and soft.  I went back to the slower whorl (10:1) for this one, just because I felt like I had more control.  My spinning is still not consistent, but the yarn came out beautiful and soft.  It will likely become a scarf.

For plying both of these sets of singles I broke out the jumbo flyer that I had bought for my Kromski spinning wheel.  Getting it switched over was a bit of a challenge, and getting it set up to actually ply was also a bit of challenge and I ended up snapping my string drive band.  Fortunately I had a spare poly drive band so I replaced the band and got it all working.  It definitely took more effort to treadle (I have a single treadle), especially as the bobbin filled (inertia is real).  Spinning with my regular flyer is really easy and almost effortless, so I wasn’t super happy with the experience of plying on the jumbo.  I’m seriously thinking about getting a second wheel just for plying and am looking at the Ashford Kiwi 3, which comes with larger capacity bobbins, and is compact, and folds up.

 

Holly Sweater - Finished!

And it is done!  I finished up the second sleeve this past Sunday and blocked it on Monday.  So, my first all-over colorwork, top-down, yoked sweater is done.  I learned lots and enjoyed the knitting.   I have two more Advent calendar kits from Onling to knit up - one from 2023 and one from 2024 - but right now I am back to working on my Wallflower Blanket.  I need to finish it up so I can get started on Tesselation Nation.

Pattern:  Holly Sweater by Ruth Sorensen

Yarn:  Shetland Wool

Needles:  US 4 (3.5 mm) and US 5 (3.75 mm)

Holly Sweater - One Sleeve Done!

After finishing my needlepoint excursion I went back to working on my Holly Sweater and quickly finished up the sleeve.  When I started the sleeve I worked the decreases as the pattern calls for, but when I tried it on I decided that the decreases (every five rows!) were making the sleeve too tight, so I ripped back to the row before the first decrease and worked the sleeve without decreases.  That made for much easier knitting as I didn’t have to make sure to adjust the pattern every time I decreased to line up the motifs correctly.  When I got to the cuff I worked a decrease round to get me to the correct number of stitches, from 96 stitches down to 64, which meant I worked k1, k2tog all the way around.  I also only worked 22 motifs instead of 23, as the pattern size (XS) called for, and worked 12 rows of ribbing before binding off.  The sleeve length is perfect and I like the way it gathers in at the cuff.  I think it fits with the easy of the body.

Pattern:  Holly Sweater by Ruth Sorensen

Yarn:  Shetland Wool

Needles:  US 4 (3.5 mm) and US 5 (3.75 mm)

A Little Needlepoint Excursion

I took a little break from knitting last week (I had overdone it and was noticing some soreness in places that aren’t usually sore) and spent the week doing a little needlework project.  This was a kit for a notions bag. I found it when I was setting up my spinning corner.  The zipper actually goes all the way around so you can unzip it to work the needlepoint and then zip it back up to use it.  I also added a cotton lining just to finish it off.  My first forays in to the crafting universe were actually embroidery and needlepoint back when I was in my early teenage years.  I don’t think I have any of the embroidery that I did, although I think I still might have my embroidery hoop somewhere, but maybe not, it has been a very long time since I’ve seen it.  I do have three needlepoint pillows that I have made, including my very first one, which was a bargello kit.  I also have several cross-stitch and needlepoint kits that I have purchased over the years, and a latch-hook “tiger skin” rug that I have never finished - all I have left is the assembly.  One of these days, now that I’m retired…

Holly Sweater - Body Done!

I finished up the body last night, and started on a sleeve.  Spit splicing the yarn is working great    I also did a long-tail cast-on for the stitches under the arm when I set up the body stitches.  The first body row begins with casting on 8 stitches, so I did a long-tail cast-on and dropped the end when I got to the body stitches.  When I got to the other underarm stitches I tied a piece of the same color yarn to the working strand and did the long-tail cast-on again.  I like the nice edge this gives, as well as easy stitch pick-up, and it also seems to reduce those pesky holes you tend to get.  Plus, if you do have any holes you have tails at each side of the underarm seam to sew them closed.  This will be my go-to technique going forward.

The pattern calls for 6 cm of ribbing at the hem, but I only did 4, 6 just seemed excessive, and the sweater is plenty long enough on me.

Pattern:  Holly Sweater by Ruth Sorensen

Yarn:  Shetland Wool

Needles;  US 4 (3.5 mm) and US 5 (3.75 mm)

Holly Sweater - Yoke Done!

Since I have retired I have actually become monogamous with my projects, so I have been knitting away at my colorwork sweater.  This morning I finished up the yoke and am now ready to place sleeve stitches on stitch holders and start working on the body.  Before I get too far in to that endeavor I am going to skein up all my little balls of yarn, spit splicing them together so I don’t end up with a bunch of mini skeins, then wet them to get the kinks out and cake them up again.  I’m pretty happy with how this is turning out, and my gauge looks to be pretty spot on.  No, I did not do a gauge swatch, my earlier attempt served as my gauge swatch, and I have since checked the gauge on the yoke and seem to be on target.

Pattern:  Holly Sweater by Ruth Sorensen

Yarn:  Shetland Wool

Needles:  US 4 (3.5 mm) and US 5 (3.75 mm)

Holly Sweater - Take Three!

Having finished my Peacock Shawl (a project that I had started back on November 6, 2016!) I looked at my other WIPs to see what I wanted to tackle finishing next.  When I had set it aside back in March of 2023 it was almost finished.  I had actually worked one of the sleeves, although I didn’t take a picture.  But here is a picture of the body finished.

Although it fit me, it did not have the recommended ease, and after letting my mind ruminate on it in the background and trying it on again, I decided that it really did need more ease and that my gauge was just too tight.  I had already gone up one needle size, but I decided I needed to go up more.  I was using a 2.5 mm and 3.0 mm needle, and my gauge was 32 stitches and 38 rounds in 4 inches, vice the called for gauge of 27 stitches and 30 rounds in 4 inches, so I decided to go up to a 3.5 mm (US 4) and a 3.75 mm (US 5) and try again.  To organize the yarn I got 8 bags, and put a slip of paper with the chart symbol for the color in each one.  Then I spent an evening frogging my work and winding lots of little balls of yarn and sorting them all in to the appropriate bags while watching the Chiefs beat the Texans.  My Lumos light helped me make sure I got the correct colors in their respective bags.

I had already cast on a fresh start and the larger needles, and going up the needle size seems to have done the trick with regards to gauge.  I was worried about the looser gauge looking sloppy with the color work, but so far it seems to be okay.

Pattern:  Holly Sweater by Ruth Sorensen

Yarn:  Shetland Wool

Needles:  US 4 (3.5 mm) and US 5 (3.75 mm)

Peacock Shawl - Finished!

I finished up my Peacock Shawl this past Wednesday and I am delighted with how it came out.  I extended the pattern to use up all of my yarn, and ended up needing more, running out with six rows and the bind off to go.  Fortunately I had a skein of Zen Yarn Garden Sturdy Sock in my stash that went well with skeins 7 and 8 from the set, containing some of the same greens and taking things into the lighter colors as you can see.  Oh the advantages of a ginormous stash, and also these are my favorite colors, so it wasn’t a stretch to find a similar enough skein.

I did have one set back, when I decided that the original way that I had extended the pattern just wasn’t working out.  I had gone a bit nuts on the beads, I didn’t like the way that I had closed up the peacock eye, and I had also started using the final chart for the center panel and I didn’t like how that was working out - too much stockinette stitch and I just didn’t think it would block out well.  So, I spent an eventing putting in an afterthought life line in the row right before I started my changes (10 rows back), ripped back, got all my stitches back on to my needles, and went back and reworked the chart for the sides - this time simply extending the peacock eye motif, cutting back on the beads (just one per eye) and decided to just keep using the center chart C for the rest of the shawl.

The shawl is huge, taking all of my newer gridded blocking mats, plus some of my older Knit Picks ones.  You can see how I extended the peacock eye motif as well as the center panel.  I really like how it came out.

Pattern:  Peacock Shawl by Sivia Harding

Yarn:  Yarn Fairy Fairy Sock Medium and Zen Yarn Garden Sturdy Sock

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Finnegan’s Run 2024 Winter Comfort Box - Unboxing!

Last week we made our every 12 weeks “Beer, wine and steak” shopping trip to Fredericksburg/Spotsylvania so I was able to pick up my winter comfort box from this past Christmas.  We don’t get in to “town” that often, having a pretty full life here in King George.  I have been buying these for several years now, although I have yet to knit any of them up - definitely on my “to do” list now that I’m retired.  They always put together a nice package and try to locally source the goodies that they include.  This year they even personalize the project bag, which was a really sweet surprise.

Here are all the neatly wrapped goodies prior to unwrapping them.  I’m not going to have before and after for each package as I am just not that person.  So here are all the goodies after unwrapping.

Starting at the top, just above my name, and going clockwise:  A beautiful card from a local artist, a short folding ruler that also lets you do wraps per inch (and has the wraps per inch for different yarn weights on the ruler), a Pom-pom, a notions tin (they included one last year as well, and we all know how we love our notions tins), Andes mints (quickly eaten - shared with my husband), lip-balm, leather sew-on gift tags, and the yarn.  There were also two $25 gift certificates to the shop, which was a nice surprise.  The yarn is from 29 Bridges Studio across the Potomac River in Maryland.  It is sport weight, 100% superwash merino, and the colors are (from right to left) Afterglow and Lapis.

Crafting Spaces!

Now that I’m retired I’ve been focusing on creating crafting spaces in the house for the crafts that I love.  When I signed up for the Spin School I knew that I needed to create a spinning space that would encourage me to practice my spinning, and would keep everything I need neatly arranged.  The mini chaise is a piece that I picked up at an antique store when I was living in Center City Philadelphia.  Next to the chaise is an octagonal oak table that my husband and I picked up at a local antique store when we bought the old fashioned ice box that I use for my teas.  All the tools that I need are close at hand and the chaise has me at just the right height for spinning.  You can’t see it in this picture but the TV is to the right as this is our living room

Most of my knitting and crochet takes place on my day bed, which I use instead of a couch that is also where I lounge when we are watching TV.  I used to have an overloaded coffee table, but now have a much bigger, and much prettier table set up.

I made this table top when I was in graduate school at Notre Dame (in South Bend Indiana) and used it as my dining table (attached to a couple of book shelves), and when I moved to Philadelphia it became both my dining table and my crafting table, supported on book boxes (you can see a couple of my book boxes in the background of the first picture being used to support shelves, which is what happens when your collection exceeds the boxes and you’re no longer moving around).  You see, I have lots of books (and DVDs and CDs), and I used to have lots of book shelves.  I also moved around a lot in my younger days.  When I was in graduate school at Ball State (in Muncie Indiana, and just two hours away from my folks in Yellow Springs, Ohio) my Mom had the brilliant idea of turning my book shelves into book boxes that could be stacked to form shelves, but more importantly would serve as packing boxes for my books.  So that is what my Dad and I did - first we converted most of my book shelves into book boxes and then we made a bunch more.  They are all backed and have lids.  Anyway, back to my table top.  I needed something to support it, and all of my book boxes are occupied, so I bought some large milk crates (that come in bright colors) and used four to provide the base, and storage for my projects.

Even the trash can has a nice spot that keeps it out of the way and yet still accessible.

And there are spots for books that I want handy, as well as my iPad.  And that poor overloaded coffee table has also found a new home.

We had another coffee table that had served as a place to keep all of my spice jars (it was supposed to be a staging area as the real storage solution was created, but that never happened) and it just so happens that my old coffee table fit perfectly on top of that other coffee table, creating a nice spot for books that had been piling up (literally) on the floor and it also provides another napping spot for our cat Jezebel (cats need lots of good napping spots, preferably by windows).  The spices have a home in spice shelves that I bought and set up on more (you guessed it) boxes that I also bought to hold more books.

I Made Yarn!

About a decade ago I bought a spinning wheel - a Kromski Polonaise (a good investment as it turns out as the price has doubled since then) - but never learned how to use it.  I tried at one point, and we just fought each other.  Oh the mysteries of tension and drive!  Along the way I also picked up some spindles and a friend taught me the basics of park and draft, but I never really got good at that either.  Then along came the Mighty Network and a community called Sheepspot.  I joined it with the thought that I might finally learn to spin, but never had the time to really dedicate to it until I retired.  I had re-upped my membership in The Sheepspot Guild last year (after letting it lapse for a while), and then Sasha offered a Spin School for beginners starting November 5.  Conveniently I had started my terminal leave leading up to my retirement on October 21 so I signed up and I am very glad that I did.  The skein on the left is the first skein that I plyed.  It is the most inconsistently spun of the bunch, and it is too loosely plyed.  The middle skein is the second one that I plyed.  The spinning on that one is more consistent.  The skein on the right is my latest one.  The singles are still more consistent and also thinner.  My niddy noddy creates one yard skeins so I am able to determine the yardage of each skein.

Skein 1:  47 yards, 57.8 grams

Skein 2:  38 yards, 43.8 grams

Skein 3:  60 yards, 44.9 grams

Sasha promised that she would make me besties with my wheel, and she delivered.  I love spinning, and will be doing more.  At this point I have been focusing solely on my short forward draft, just trying to be consistent.  Once I have mastered that to my satisfaction (basically spinning consistent singles) I’ll go back to the videos and work on the short backward draft, spinning from the fold, and the supported long draw.  I am using Heinz 57 from The Woolery to learn on (this is the fiber that Sasha recommended as being easy to spin) and it definitely is.  She will be starting a free class for intermediate spinners next week that is supposed to help you continue to improve, which I signed up for, and in March it looks like she will be offering the Breed Study course, which I will also take.  I may also dabble a bit in dying, just to add color to these skeins.
 

Peacock Shawl - Chart C Done!

With the Saugerties Shrug finished I’ve been focusing most of my knitting time on my Peacock Shawl, finishing up the second repeat of the Chart C yesterday.  I’ve totally disregarded the yarn usage instructions in the pattern and am just using up each skein and then joining the next.  I have decided to modify Chart D, closing up the main motif into a diamond and repeating rows 151-155 of the chart until I use up my yarn.  I may do some modifications to that pattern as well - closing up the pattern in those final rows - it depends on how much yarn I have left at that point.

Pattern:  Peacock Shawl by Sivia Harding

Yarn:  Yarn Fairy Fairy Sock Medium

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)
 

Saugerties Shrug - Finished!

I finished up the shrug this past Sunday and posted the left over Bisque (59.9 grams) on Tuesday to the Ravelry user that had contacted me about it.  I am very glad that I knit this at a tighter gauge than the pattern called for, or else it would have been really huge.  I stopped working the flat stockinette section when I reached the end of the third skein of the Bisque instead of making it as long as the pattern called for.  After casting off I picked up stitches around the opening and knit 8 rows of the cuff pattern, working decreases every row where the two sides meet (the corners) to just finish it off.  That stockinette edge curled horribly and looked unfinished to me.

The blocking picture shows the edging on the opening, and you can see my decreases.

Pattern:  Saugerties Shrug by Jill Zielinski

Yarn:  The Plucky Knitting Scholar Worsted

Needles:  US 7 (4.5 mm) and US 8 (5.0 mm)

Saugerties Shrug - One Skein of Bisque Done

I have used up one skein of my Bisque and am halfway through my second skein.  Based upon some yarn usage calculations I will use up most, but not all, of my four skeins of Bisque.  It is actually fortunate that I am knitting at a tighter gauge and making a slightly smaller shrug, as I don’t think I would have had enough yarn otherwise, given how under weight my skeins are.  Four skeins should give me 460 grams of yarn (115 grams each), but I have only about 420 grams, and I will use about 400 grams.  I like the size that mine is working out to be, and it will be snuggly when it is finished.  I did go back down to the US 7 needle when I started working back and forth, it just looked neater than continuing on with the US 8.

I did make a slight modification to the colorwork pattern on the last patterned row.  I worked 3 C2, 1 C1 instead of 7 C2, 1 C1, just so I wouldn’t have to catch my floats.  This project is one of three that is in my current rotation and is my “I want to pay attention to something else (reading or watching TV) knitting” at least until I get back to the colorwork section on the right sleeve.  The other two projects are my Peacock Shawl, which requires some attention, being lace, and my Wallflowers blanket, which I also have to pay attention to while I work on it, but it makes a great lap blanket while I’m doing it - perfect for these winter evenings.

Pattern:  Saugerties Shrug by Jill Zielinski

Yarn:  The Plucky Knitter Scholar Worsted

Needles:  US 7 (4.5 mm) and US 8 (5.0 mm)

Peacock Shawl - One Repeat of Chart C Done!

After finishing up my Capelet I pulled this project out of my WIPs pile and decided it was time to finish it.  I had set it aside because I wasn’t sure how I wanted to handle the skein transitions.  The pattern calls for “feathering”, also known as striping, and I’m just not a fan of doing that, so in the end I just went with my default method of attaching the new skein to the old and just knitting until the old skein ran out, wherever that happens to occur.

It has been a while since I’ve done an all over lace shawl, and I am really enjoying it.  The yarn is really wonderful to work with, and I love the colors and the beads.  This project has been languishing since December of 2016!  I’m glad to be working on it again.  I want to finish as many of my WIPs as I can before I start more projects, although I have already broken that rule with the Saugerties Shrug, but that is a special exception.

Pattern:  Peacock Shawl by Sivia Harding

Yarn:  Yarn Fairy Fairy Sock Medium in Peacock

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Kalona - Finished!

Finally, I finished up my Kalona cardigan.  I finished it up on December 29, and it came off the blocking mats this morning.  It fits me better than it does my dress maker dummy, although the sleeves are just a little long, coming down just past my wrists, but that is okay.

Blocking was very straightforward.

The only thing I pinned was the bottom lace.

Pattern:  Kalona by Alison Green

Yarn:  Berroco Ultra Wool Fine

Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)