Another frogged project

I was on holiday in Sherwood Forest last autumn and bought a couple of balls of cotton yarn.  I really liked this one – it’s a lovely soft cotton in a gradient which goes from a sage green through to a deep purple.  I wanted to knit something lovely, to remind me of my time in Sherwood, and this shawl was very nearly it… but unfortunately I have had to conclude that I’m not really a shawl person.  And even if I were, I would be a bigger-than-this shawl person.  It was more a sort of kerchief, and I’m definitely not a kerchief person!  So, sadly, it was frogged.

(And now it turns out that the yarn is no longer in production, and I can’t find any end-of-stock or de-stashed to buy, so I am stuck with my one 115m ball of yarn…)

Sherwood Shawl

Ending the year on a high note!

Shawlissima!

This shawl is something that I am very proud of.  It’s probably the most complicated thing I’ve knitted so far (though in reality the pattern was fairly simple, I had to learn a number of new techniques), and it was a present for my mum, so it had to be nice!

The yarn was a bamboo/silk mix (Sublime Yarns) and was lovely – a little bit splitty, but so soft and smooth and with a lovely sheen.

I cast on on the 6th of December – which took several tries as I’d never done the circular cast on before.  And to be honest there were a few more froggings and castings-on before I finally properly got to grips with the left leaning increase. The pattern was easy to remember, but still fun to knit. Quite quick, as well – I took two and a bit weeks, though I don’t knit every day and if I do it’s usually only for an hour or so.

I used the picot bind-off instead of the sewn picot hem – I thought the hem might be too obvious with this yarn (though it would probably have taken half the time!).

This is the first time I’ve properly blocked something (that wasn’t a square or rectangle) – which gave me a good excuse to buy blocking mats and wires! Pinned it out dry and then spritzed it, which worked fine on the swatch.

It was unpinned, folded and wrapped on the morning of Christmas Eve, and it was the last thing put in the car before we drove the four hours home for Christmas.  As a result I don’t have full measurements or a photo of it off the blocking mats. But it turned out beautifully, and it was totally worth the late nights!

It’s not big – it’s just a shoulder shawl, really, but it was intended to be something for the Italian evenings when Mum’s on holiday in the spring. I just hope she likes/wears it… (I’ll never know, probably, either way, so no point fretting about it, really!)

Washcloth

A  nice simple washcloth, with an eyelet pattern.  This knitted up nice and quickly, and I quite liked knitting with cotton – I’ve never done it before.  The only downside is that it looks a little bit grubby – it’s a cream-grey gradient.

From fluff to finished item

I’ve finally knitted a thing made of my own handspun!  The very first spinning I did, which has been sitting in a pretty mini-skein since February, has now become a (short) cowl.

The pattern is the Lacy Art Yarn Scarf by Dixie Grilley, but since I didn’t have much yarn, I just knitted until I’d run out and then sewed it up (moebius style).  I like it a lot – it’s fairly dark, but has these bright flashes of red, and it looks nice with most other colours.

My first lace… nearly

I started the Knotted Openwork Stole by Cindy Greenslade a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve just frogged it. 😦  I was using some of the yarn I was gifted by my mum, and I realised that I really only had enough to make a square, rather than the wide scarf I was envisaging.  Still, I like the pattern and I’ll do it again sometime.

                        Befuddley Shawl

(I called it my Befuddley Shawl on Rav – because I spent the first few rows feeling quite befuddled by the pattern, and by knitting with large (12mm) needles!)

My first item of proper clothing!

I made a shrug!

No-Rogue shrug

I’ll be completely honest, I’m not sure that I like it (or that I’ll wear it) very much… Actually, it’s the yarn I don’t like.  I have an irrational hatred for self-striping yarn, though I realise that it has its place and can be lovely.  But I didn’t realise that Noro Mossa is self-striping, and I’m not crazy about the look of it.

No-Rogue shrug

BUT it fits, and it looks as it’s supposed to, and I did seaming (which took all of two minutes).  I would certainly knit this pattern again, though I don’t know how many shrugs I need in my life…!

(The pattern is Retro Rogue by Anik St Louis, and since I made it from Noro yarn I couldn’t resist the punny name…)

Creation and destruction

I mentioned last month that I’d spun the 20g of undyed BFL fibre – it came to somewhere in the region of 115m (I don’t have a proper measuring tool at the moment, so I think it’s somewhere in the ballpark, but I definitely need to get me a niddy-noddy!) and has been wound onto a toilet roll for storage until I know what I’m going to do with it.

Undyed BFL single

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The destruction
The resin Wildcraft spindle is an absolute joy to use – my other spindle seems very lumpy and heavy in comparison!  Unfortunately, I managed to step on it and crack the shaft (so not complete destruction, but still upsetting).  Luckily Karen from Wildcraft is absolutely fantastic, and reassured me, after I’d been self-pitying on Ravelry, that the warranty on the spindle even covers, in her words, “acts of muppetry”, so I’ve sent it back to her to be repaired or replaced.  (I am so impressed with her customer service, I can’t even tell you.)  So I had to unwind the lovely acidy-limey green merino I’d been spinning – which is also now on a toilet roll and which I really have no idea about the length of, because I didn’t even try to measure it – it’s only a tiny percentage of the total 50g of fibre.

Lime green merino single

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So I am back to my first, unidentified wooden spindle, which weighs a lot more than the resin spindle did – nearly 50g I think.  I didn’t try the merino on it – it was quite difficult to get the hang of it even on the lighter spindle because it’s slippery and has a fairly short staple, so trying to get the same thickness of single on the heavier one would be, I think, beyond my capabilities.  I tried some alpaca/merino blend which I’d bought from someone on Ravelry, but I just could not get it to spin at all.  It was terrible.

So I thought I’d try some of the giant bag of undyed alpaca which I bought at Wonderwool a couple of years ago, and haven’t done anything with because…  well, for the first year, because I didn’t know how to spin and I didn’t want to use it to try to learn with, because it’s so lovely.  But I was starting to miss spinning, so I thought I’d give it a try, just in case.  And it seems fine, even though everything I’ve read has said that alpaca should be spun on a lightweight spindle.  I haven’t spun much of it yet, because I haven’t been spinning much at all over the past few weeks – I’ve been knitting (see below) instead – but I spent some time pulling sections of fibre from the absolutely enormous alpaca batts and removing any vegetable matter and lumps of compacted fibre, in preparation for a proper chunk of spinning.  I’m looking forward to it, but the fibre has been sitting in my living room for so long it feels slightly odd to actually be working with it!

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Knitting

In a burst of pre-Easter enthusiasm, I knitted two little bunnies.  They are incredibly simple – just a knitted square sewn up (using nice big, simple stitches) so that two of the corners make the ears.  The hardest bit is sewing the faces.  I combed through all of the projects with photos on Ravelry and tried to copy the best bunny-faces that I found, but I wasn’t entirely successful.

The cream bunny is okay, though I think it looks a bit befuddled.  The grey one, apart from the fact that I put the face in the wrong place and so it’s constantly looking up, has a faintly scary look.  Or maybe that’s just my imagination…

The grey one was the first one finished, and I think the needles I used were too small – the fabric was very thick and had the flexibility of leather.  In the end it sewed up better than I’d expected, but probably isn’t good enough for a gift.  (I sent the cream one to my mum – she mocked its lack of legs, but assures me it’s in pride of place in the living room.  Hm.)

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I also decided to finally knit myself a pair of the “Alice” fingerless gloves which I’d made for my sister last year, using the lovely teal Debbie Bliss cashmerino yarn I bought last year.  They’ve turned out nicely, and were a very easy knit, which I knew they would be, of course.  My next pair of gloves will definitely have an actual thumb, though!

Finished bag!

Remember the stash-busting bag?  I finally finished it.  It was sitting in the corner of the room for months, next to the material I’d bought to line it, and I’d do a little bit of sewing, and then put it to one side and do something else instead.  I hadn’t sewn anything apart from a hem for about twenty-five years, and it was all done by hand (I don’t own a sewing machine).  I found it quite hard on my hands and shoulders (I always grip too tight and tense too much when I’m doing close work), and it took a long time to get it all done.

But…  I’m really pleased with it.  I didn’t particularly like the stripes once the knitting part was finished, and wished that I’d done it differently, but the lining material makes all the difference, and I love the combination of the squooshy knitting and the slightly crisp lining material.

I’m using it for my spinning (the green fluff in the pic below is the merino I’m spinning at the moment) and honestly, it makes me smile every time I pick it up!

Belated February update

(Edited to add photos)

Knitting
So, the blanket (known as the Big Damn Blankie, because it’s going to be) is 21 rows old.  It’s also quite bright, and a nice mix of yarn weights, ranging from double knitting to chunky.

Blankie – 21 rows donw

This is going to be a long term project, to be added to when I want something fairly mindless to do with my hands – it’s all knitted, nothing complicated unless you count the change of yarn at the end of each row.  A perfect project for tired nights when you just want something to keep your hands busy while you watch telly or chat.

Spinning
I finished my first skein of handspun at the beginning of February.  The red and blue were plied together (and crikey, that took absolutely ages and made me ache!), then washed and hung to dry.  It took two or three days for it to be completely dry, but I’m quite happy with the result.

First handspun!

It does the “thick and thin” thing that is apparently quite normal for inexperienced handspinners, but I think it averages out to about aran weight.  It measured 80 yards before washing, but I think it’s probably shrunk a bit.  Not long enough to do much with, but I’ll think of something!

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I bought a new spindle (it’s true, they’re addictive) from Wildcraft – a beautiful resin low-whorl, with viola flowers set into the resin.

Resin spindle with viola flowers

I also bought some dyed Blue Flaced Leicester fibre (in the Pot Pourri colourway) from Wildcraft.  The spindle also came with some free fluff (about 20g of undyed BFL) which I spun on the resin spindle to get myself used to it – the thickness of the single was generally a lot more consistent, and on the whole thinner than my first couple of singles, I think.

The Pot Pourri BFL will have to wait, though – my next challenge is dyed merino fluff which my sister bought for me – two 50g chunks, one lime green and one very dark green.  I think it was intended for felting rather than spinning, but I think if I can do a decent job with it, the two greens, plied with a third, different fibre, will make a nice yarn.  That’s the plan, anyway…

January round-up

Well, there’s not much to show for January, really.

I haven’t done any cross stitch at all – I did intend to start some at a crafty get-together that I have every month with friends, but we ended up going through someone else’s yarn stash and nattering instead!

I have started a stash-busting blanket, based on a pattern from Ravelry which basically involves casting on as many stitches as possible to a circular needle and then knitting flat, one row per yarn.  In preparation for this, I went through the stash that I got from my mum and sorted it out properly – there were several separate balls which were actually the same yarn, and some that was too short to use.  Only four or five actually still had their labels.  I’ll write more about the blanket when I do an update with a picture.

I haven’t started my stitch pattern squares yet, but have a list of patterns to do, so hopefully will get some done next month.  I think they’ll end up as a patchworky cushion cover, if they end up as anything at all.

I have been doing a bit of spinning, which is very soothing, and I’ve very nearly finished the blue unidentified fibre which will eventually be plied with the red – I’m looking forward to seeing it finished!