Happy Yarn

Just a quick post to show you a tiny test skein of laceweight Cormo yarn I plied last night. Still needs washing to make sure it doesn't bloom up bigger than laceweight, but I am pleased beyond all reason with this little skein of "happy yarn," so called because every time I see it, it makes me happy. What more could I ask of a hobby?



I was at a small spinning group last night. I plied up this baby from singles I had spun before, carded three rolags of Cormo, and then started spinning more laceweight singles. Would you believe that in almost 2.5 hours (including the plying and carding), I didn't even finish spinning all three rolags? I have to say, laceweight makes for a nice carding-to-spinning ratio, given that carding is not my favorite part of the job.

Keep Your Head Down

It's been a while since I posted. A couple of days ago I wrote a rather agonized post, none of it about knitting or spinning, and couldn't decide whether to publish it. Then, in the next day, almost everything I was writing about changed. So I deleted the draft, and here goes with what's still current.

The title is a request/admonishment to my unborn son. He's 32 weeks along now, and has been head-down at my last two checkups. Having had my first child by C-section because she was breech and couldn't be turned by any method known to humanity, I say, Hallelujah! And also, Ouch! I am ecstatically glad that this baby has a good chance of coming out in the time-honored way, 'cause C-section recovery is NO FUN, and early bonding where neither the child nor I is under the influence of narcotics is just sounding freaking beautiful. Sleeplessness, yes, most likely. Narcotics, not if I can help it.

The "Ouch" part is what it feels like to have a fetal head jammed into my pelvis a lot of the time. I know, it will get more intense before it gets easier. For now, it just seems like I'm getting more uncomfortable by the hour. But as some Buddhists say, pain is inevitable -- suffering is optional. I'll happily take the crushed bladder, sciatica, and so forth in exchange for a decent chance of getting this child born without surgery or drugs. Who me, suffer? No way! :)

And hey, I'm actually getting a little knitting done in the midst of all the spinning and childbirth-prep exercises. I have the belly and sleeves of the Shining Violet sweater done and ready to join to knit the raglan yoke. But today I needed some brainless knitting for church, so I swatched up some handspun for mittens. It was my first time trying to do anything with any of my handspun yarn besides look at it and pet it. Here's the swatch, on top of this week's childbirth reading:



The grayish stripe across the middle of the swatch is part of the charm of this yarn (she said, trying to get used to it herself). The brown in the yarn is from a Corriedale fleece that had many soft gray locks in it. I blended them in with the dark brown as I went, but not in all the rolags. That stripe is just a section of the brown singles with more gray than the rest. I'm planning to stripe this marled yarn with some pure-white handspun, so I expect (hope) those stripes will be the most visually striking element of the design.

Knitting with the yarn was nicer than I expected. The ply has only 8 or 9 bumps per inch, so I thought it might be pretty splitty, but the plies felted together just a tad in the final washing, so I'm having no such trouble. Also, it was a total thrill to be knitting with yarn that I've taken from raw, unwashed fleece to fixin'-to-be-mittens. It took some self-restraint not to tell everyone I saw about it. (I did tell a few!)

See the Fleece!

Here you go with some images at last. First, the fleece in its delivery box, bagged, with all the extra air squeezed out:



When I opened the bag, the fleece puffed up to about twice this size. Then I unbagged and unrolled it:



Here's a closeup of the great crimp:



And here's me and one of my cats with the fleece, for scale:



In the background you can see some of the furniture I had to move aside to be able to roll this monster out. It definitely smelled like ram, or so I'm guessing. I chose the portion in the foreground of the last photo, which I'm guessing is from the hind section of the ram, to wash this afternoon, to put my scouring to the acid test for eliminating odor. (Just to be clear: I'm not seeing dung tags -- the fleece is well-skirted. But that section definitely shows more dirt than the others.) The fleece came out smelling much better. It's drying now.

If you've ever scoured a fleece, maybe you can identify with this: I can't not fiddle with a fleece while it's soaking in the HOT soapy water (perhaps my faith in chemistry falls short, but I just want the whole thing to be underwater, darn it, and fleece likes to float!). And as you may know, heat plus soap plus agitation gives you felting -- not so desirable in fiber you plan to comb or card and then spin! I restrained myself as much as I could. When the fleece is dry and I try carding it with my new, fine hand cards (thank you, DH!), we'll see whether my restraint was sufficient. I may try rewashing part of it: I think I put too much fleece in my mesh bags, and so my washing didn't make much of a dent in the dark tips. Worst case, if I trim them, it's less than a quarter inch of staple lost, so I'd still have at least 4 inches over most of the fleece. Suggestions welcome!

Gory details: Shining Violet Sweater; and The Fleece Arrives!

My giant Cormo fleece came in the mail! I haven't had a chance to spread it out for a picture yet, but it's huge: 9.27 pounds of Cormo fleece from a ram named Ken. It smells a little different from the other raw fleeces I've worked with so far, but my spinning teacher (who should know, having frequented wool markets for years) assures me the smell is just sheepy, from last spring's shearing, and nothing to worry about with normal scouring. Maybe it's ram vs. ewe. Who knows? I took a hunk of it to my local handweaver's guild meeting this week, and everyone who looked at it said some variation of the same thing: "Wow, that crimp is amazing!" This is a wonderful fleece. It's from Cormo Sheep & Wool Farm in Orland, California. Sue, who runs the enterprise, is great to work with. I'm thinking of trying to spin 2-ply laceweight from a bunch of the fleece to make a lace stole for spring days and cool summer evenings. In about 4 years, when I get all that spun up and knitted while taking care of an infant/toddler. Wish me luck. :) A Norwegian-style sweater or two may also be in this fleece's future. My husband says it's so big, we'll be wearing pants made of the stuff. Can't you just picture him in some nice wool longies?



Okay, here's where I use this blog for a purely selfish purpose, though maybe you'll get something out of it, too. I'm recording all the construction details of my current knitting project, a purple sweater for DD made from KnitPicks' Shine Sport in Violet. I have 20 balls of this, but I hope to need only 5 or 6 for the sweater. All this note-taking is in case I like the result well enough to make another one like it later, perhaps for DS or a friend.

I'm using construction techniques based on Jacqueline Fee's book, The Sweater Workshop. I love this book. I have never knitted in the same way since reading it and working the sweater sampler. I'm much more keen on designing my own stuff now, or altering patterns as needed to be more what I want to knit. I recommend it highly.

So, for a sweater somewhere around size 4T or 5T (growing room for DD), I cast on 135 stitches for the lower edge of the sweater on size 5 24" circular needles using a long-tail cast on (my gauge is 5.75 st/in in stockinette). I knit in the round in garter (1st round purl, 2nd round knit, etc.) until I had four garter ridges, ending with a knit round. Then I switched to stockinette. In the first stockinette round (that's the second knit round in a row), I increased 15 stitches, spaced evenly around, to keep the garter from flaring or folding up too much. Then I worked until the length seemed right: about 8.25 inches, to get to within one inch of DD's armpits with some length to grow into. This much took exactly two balls of yarn. I left the belly part of the sweater on a cable to come back to.

I cast on 34 stitches for the sleeve and worked in garter as for the lower edge. (I tried to do this magic-loop style, but found it a pain, so ended up working the cast-on and garter on DPNs and then transferring to magic loop to continue.) In the first stockinette round, I increased 4 stitches, 2 one stitch in from the underarm line and 2 more evenly spaced around the wrist. Then I knit in stockinette, increasing 2 stitches in every 4th round, each increase 1 stitch in from the underarm line. When I had 60 stitches, I knit straight until the sleeve seemed long enough -- 10 inches, though this may need to be rolled up until DD grows a bit.

I unknit 6 stitches from the underarm "seamline" of each sleeve and then placed 12 stitches at each underarm on a piece of scrap yarn. I also unknit 6 stitches at one seamline of the body and then placed 12 stitches at each side of the body on scrap yarn. Then I worked a joining round, working all the non-scrap-yarn-held stitches of both sleeves and the body into one big round. On the next round, I placed markers at each joining point, using a different-colored marker at the right front join to remind me of the beginning of each round. I knit for a total of seven rounds (counting joining round and marker-placing round) with no increasing or decreasing.

Then I started the raglan decreases: as I approached each marker, I would knit to the last 2 stitches before the marker, k2tog, slip marker, k1, and SSK. I did this every other round, with alternate rounds knit straight around. I realized in hindsight that I should have worked 8 rows, decreasing only every fourth row, before starting the every-other-row decreases. As a result, the armholes are more fitted than I intended.



When I had 46 stitches between markers in the front, I started the short front placket as follows: Place a yarn marker at the center front. On a decreasing row, work all four raglan decreases and knit until there are 3 stitches left before the yarn marker. Turn so the inside of the sweater is facing you. Cast 6 new stitches onto the left needle using a cable cast-on. Purl all the way around on the inside, back to 3 stitches beyond the yarn marker, which can now be removed. Turn so the outside is facing you. *Slip one stitch as if to purl with yarn in back. P1, K1, P1, K1, P1, then work a raglan decrease round up to the last six stitches (the placket). For those stitches, P1, K1, P1, K1, P1, K1. Turn so the inside is facing. Slip one stitch as if to purl with yarn in front. K1, P1, K1, P1, K1. Purl the rest of the way around to the last six stitches, then K1, P1, K1, P1, K1, P1. Repeat from * for an inch and a half or so, then work a buttonhole: as established, except at the beginning of an outside row, Sl1, P1, K1, yo, K2tog, P1, and proceed. This makes a small buttonhole, and you'll need a button that's round or nearly so to avoid catching on the edges. After the buttonhole, proceed as established with raglan shaping until 20 stitches remain between markers on each arm, stopping at the beginning of an outside-facing-you row.

Now start the neck shaping: Work the six placket stitches as usual and slip them onto a DPN or stitch holder. Work an outside row as established above up to the last six stitches. Slip those, unworked, onto another DPN or stitch holder. Turn and purl back around. (There's no catch-up row in this description, but you could work one with a separate piece of yarn to make the placket come out exactly even.) Continue with the raglan decreases and placket as established above, but start each outside row with (Slip 1 as if to purl with yarn in back, K2tog) and end each outside row with (SSK, K1) on the last three stitches. Work 8 rows this way, then cut the yarn and secure the end.

I used a K1, P1 rib for the neck. I would have done it on smaller needles, but I didn't have any handy, so I stayed on the 5s. Here's how it goes: Join in a new piece of yarn. Knit the 6 stitches from the DPN on the right front placket onto a size-5 circular needle, whatever size you like. Knit into the slanting neck shaping (I picked up 7 or 8 stitches), then knit the live stitches from the back of the neck to the circ. Knit into the left neck shaping and knit the live stitches from the left placket. Now you have one complete outside row knitted. Turn. Now count the total stitches you have. You're going to decrease some stitches on this next row, and you want the final count to be an odd number of stitches so that there's a knit stitch (looking from the outside) next to each placket. To accomplish this, I knit the inside row of the placket as established, then (P1, K1) 4 times, P2tog, *(K1, P1) 4 times, K1, P2tog, repeat from * around to before end placket stitches. As you approach the placket stitches, if you don't find your seventh-to-last stitch will be a purl, fudge one more P2tog in there to make sure it is. Turn. Work plackets with K1, P1 ribbing in between (knit the knits, purl the purls) for 1 inch, working one more buttonhole on an outside row after the first 3 or 4 rows. Bind off loosely in pattern.

Put the twelve underarm stitches on each side that you held on scrap yarn (actually 12 from each sleeve and 12 from each side of the body) on 4 DPNs, size 5 or smaller. Use kitchener stitch (explained and illustrated nicely here) to graft them together. You may need to darn around the edges of the grafting to avoid holes, but if you worked as I did, you have plenty of ends with which to accomplish this! Weave in the rest of the ends, tack down the bottom edge of the left placket to the inside of the sweater, and sew buttons (after checking they fit well!) behind the two buttonholes.

Voila! If you skipped the same 8 rows I did, you likely now have a sweater that fits a size 4T-or-so kid like a glove for about three weeks. :)

FOs: Baby Yoda Sweater, handspun; Getting in shape for childbirth

Yes -- the Baby Yoda sweater is done!

And y'know, right after I wrote my last blog entry, I discovered my first few seams were. totally. wrong. I had sewn the left cardigan front where the right should be, and then blithely sewn the right sleeve on. How did I manage such a boneheaded maneuver? Well, I had bound off the neck stitches and left the shoulder stitches live on that side, instead of vice versa (they were right on the other side), and I didn't check the slanting neckline.... Enough excuses. It was just boneheaded. So I undid the incorrect seams and put everything back together the right way on Sunday, in one marathon stretch so I wouldn't give myself an excuse for further procrastination. And now it's complete:



I checked in with my spinning teacher, who works at my LYS, about colorfastness. She said there had been some dyeing issues with Toasty Toes, now resolved, and that I could render this sweater colorfast by soaking it in a strong white-vinegar solution for a couple of hours before I wash it. Good enough.

I now have another project to occupy my idle hands. Having made a hat and scarf for DH, a pair of socks for myself, and a sweater for DS-on-the-way, it's time for something for DD. She's getting a purple spring/fall sweater, from Shine Sport (KnitPicks) in violet (of course). I'm planning a front-placket sweater with the "fancy buttons" specified by DD, along the lines of what Jacqueline Fee outlines in The Sweater Workshop, but with a higher percentage of stitches for the sleeves, to make it fit a child. DD is going on 4, so I'll aim for about a 5-year-old size for growing room, and I'll keep a couple of skeins of yarn for lengthening sleeves or hem later on, in case that will extend the wearability. Right now I'm a couple of inches short of the armpit, working bottom-up:



This is the second most boring knitting project I've ever done. The most boring was a stockinette cowl in pashmina, and there the fiber helped make up for the hours of unbroken stockinette. I asked DD if she'd like some cables or something, and she declined. I told her I might insist on a cable up each sleeve or some such if I'm going insane with boredom by that point.

Also, as promised, here are photos of my first four skeins of handspun, all washed and with the twist set, with pennies for scale:



These have all been described in previous posts. From front to back, they are: white Lincoln, spun in the grease on a spindle and 2-plied on a wheel; white Lincoln, spun clean and Navajo-plied on a wheel; and two skeins of brown Corriedale/white Lincoln, spun clean and 3-plied on a wheel. All but the first came out nice and balanced, though I had to run the Navajo-plied yarn back through the wheel to remove the extra twist from my not being able to keep up while plying. Here are some close-ups:





Mittens, here I come, with the three clean-spun skeins. I'm still spindling some greasy Corriedale to match the Lincoln, and I hope to make a hand puppet of those two.

In our last class of beginning spinning (not counting the dye class, which I'll have to do later, when I'm not pregnant), we learned how to spin worsted from top, predrafted or off the fold. Spinning off the fold doesn't quite click for me yet, but worsted feels pretty good.

In my non-fiber life, I've started a Bradley childbirth preparation class, and I'm liking it a lot so far. It's easy to hear, "Eat well and exercise regularly" from my doctor and not end up doing it. But in the Bradley class, my marching orders are very specific: so many servings of each different kind of food per day or week, so many reps of these exact exercises every day, and so on. And I'm doing well so far -- there's nothing like a daily chart to reactivate my good-student compulsiveness from my school days. The exercises ramp up in reps or duration for the first six or seven weeks of class and then hold mostly steady until the due date. We'll see how I do with the more strenuous demands. But already I'm feeling stronger and more energetic. Besides the exercise and good food, part of the energy is likely coming from getting to bed a bit earlier, since bedtime now involves a nightly 20-minute massage from DH for relaxation practice. Yeah!! I'll go to bed for that!

Yarn, Glorious Yarn!

I hope all the photos today will provide sufficient distraction from the fact I haven't finished the Baby Yoda Sweater yet, despite the tone of my last post title... :/ It will get done, never fear.

But meanwhile, the spinning has been glorious! In those two half-days at DD's school, plus an evening and morning at home, I spun enough to have a total of 1.5 bobbins of dark Corriedale singles, and 1 full bobbin of white Lincoln singles, all fairly fine. Oh yeah, and in between those two school days I took the plunge and bought a spinning wheel!



It's a Lendrum double-treadle folding wheel, the same as the loaner wheel I had this week, and I love it. I bought the basic package -- what you see here, plus 3 more bobbins and a lazy kate. I'll probably add the plying head soon. Oh, and if you noticed the Scotch tension band hanging loose, don't worry -- I was just winding off the last of my plied yarn!

That's right -- today in class I finally got some good guidance on plying. I 3-plied some of the singles as two dark, one light. I haven't washed the yarn to set the twist yet, but it's promising in terms of balance. Here are some pictures:



If you're keeping track, this is my second finished handspun. I'm very pleased. I'm thinking mittens. For me, so there. :P

When I got home, I couldn't stop. I split up my remaining 0.5 bobbin of Corriedale and plied some more, same as the first skein (but only about 60 yards):



I had a few yards of Corrie singles left over. They're now wrapped around the center shaft of my niddy-noddy and happily being used as skein ties.

I still had half a bobbin of white Lincoln singles, and I didn't feel like trying to split it equally onto 3 bobbins, so I tried Navajo plying for the first time. (This isn't covered in my current spinning class, though it will be in Spinning II, so once again, no blame to my teacher for these -- though she gets credit for answering my, "I'm sorely tempted to try Navajo-plying my leftover Lincoln" with, "Go ahead and give it a try!") It took a little while to get the hang of it; I broke the singles twice and so have two big, snarly knots I'll have to cut out when I'm knitting. I also had a hard time keeping up with the wheel, even on the lowest drive ratio, so the yarn was quite clearly overplied when I skeined it. Fortunately, I'd gotten some advice on that in class today, so I ran it back through the wheel real quick-like, the other direction, to take out the extra twist, leaving a little to set with washing. Now I love it!



Sorry, I forgot the standard penny for scale. I'll get it into the post-washing pictures.

I'm hoping these two yarns will work together, maybe as mittens with a little colorwork or a few stripes. The white is a bit thinner. I'll have to see how much each yarn fluffs up with washing.

Oh, and that isn't even all! We also blended some colored merino rovings into batts on drum carders in class today, and I've spun up most of mine. Pictures of that will have to wait, though -- my good light is all gone. I don't think I'll have enough yarn to make anything human-scale, but it's hard to be sure yet. My daughter loves the colors (navy, periwinkle, and fuschia blend, chosen because they're her favorites) so much, I may need to buy more of those colors and have another go so I can make her something from it. After this fun experience with drum carding, I was thrilled to learn that joining my local handweaver's guild ($30/year) entitles me to rent a drum carder, the one I used today in fact, for $5. Per month. You can't beat that with a stick!

I'm thinking that the soaking times when I'm washing all this yarn will be a good time to catch up on the housework that's been neglected this week....

I need another knitting project. My hands get all fidgety when I'm waiting anywhere. More on that when I get one going. Happy fiber, everyone!