TwistedLoops

 I’d like to do a wrap-up each month here on the blog on my progress on my ten for 10 goals.

1. Knit a large square/rectangle shawl (like one from from Heirloom Knitting or Knitted Lace of Estonia)
   No progress on this one. This is still the one that worries me most for 2010.
    
2.  Knit a sweater for me
   I’ve been thinking about this one, and I’m leaning towards the Asymmetrical Cardigan from Knitting Nature by Norah Gaughan. I thought about challenging myself and knitting this sweater for the Ravelympics, but I’m now leaning towards one of the designer events.
    
3. Knit a pair of colorwork socks
   See the super secret swatching project listed “On my Needles” and the reference above to the designer Ravelypics event? That’s all I’m saying for now.
    
4. Clean and prep the baby alpaca (cria) fleece I purchased (which will be much easier since I got combs and hand cards for Christmas)
5. Spin the above mentioned fleece
   I spent some time this past weekend testing out my new hand combs and cards. I think I need more practice with them before I tackle the fleece. I made a mess out of the commerical top that I tried to card, and I’m not sure it’s even spinnable anymore. Definitely not what I want to do with the lovely fleece.
    
6. Spin at least an hour per week to improve my overall spinning technique and consistency
   I didn’t spin an hour a week in January, but I did spin about 8 hours total in the month. I’d like to work towards spinning a little each week rather than in burst once or twice a month.
    
7. Reduce the overall stash -I must knit/destash more than I purchase (by weight, since I want to include the fiber and yarn)
   This one isn’t going so well. I’ve got another 8 ounces of roving coming to me that I ordered in January. All I used up in January was about 3 ounces of yarn for my Citron (which just finished blocking).
    
8. Design and release at least 2 patterns
   This is well underway and should easily be met this year. More details to come!
    
9. Post more regularly to this blog
   I managed to get in five posts in January. I’d still like to post more, but it’s a definite improvement over most of 2009.
    
10. Attend my local knitting or spinning groups more often (which shouldn’t be hard – I hardly went at all in 2009)
    I only made it once in January, but it’s a start. I am planning on attending tonight.

Overall, I feel that I made fairly good progress in January and have some fairly high hopes for what I can accomplish in February.

I finally knit my first pair of handspun socks.  I finished knitting them in December, but I just finished up weaving in the ends and blocking them.

The yarn was spun from a Dicentra Designs 80% Merino / 20% Tussah Silk roving in the Margartiaville colorway that I received for my birthday.  I started spinning it on Labor Day and finished the spinning in early November.  The yarn is my first true 3-ply yarn.  I managed to spin about 350 yards from the four ounces of roving.

The yarn had a lot of color changes, so I decided to keep it simple with a simple 60-stitch stockinette pattern.  I used the Welsh Heel from Knitting Vintage Socks with an eye of partridge pattern on the heel flap.  For the toe, I use a variation on the Flat Toe from Knitting Vintage Socks.   The toe calls for decreasing four stitches every other row until there are 24 stitches remain and then finishing the toe.  I prefer to continue decreasing four stitches every round until eight stitches remain.  I then use kitchener stitch to finish the toe.

I haven’t worn the socks yet, but I’m excited about them because they are so soft.

Project: 60-stitch handspun socks
Designer: Me!
Yarn: Handspun Dicentra Designs Merino/Tussah Silk
Quantity: 350 yards
Color: Margaritaville
Needles: US1.5 (2.5mm)

Started: November 12, 2009
Completed: December 9, 2009

The thread plied yarn I posted about before is finally finished.

I began by winding it off the bobbin and on to my niddy-noddy.

You can see how much twist is still in the yarn as I took it off of the niddy-noddy.  I’m used to the yarn twisting on itself lightly, but this was a bit more than I usually see.

I soaked the yarn for about an hour in hot water in the sink. It then hung to dry for several days (it’s damp here in Oregon). I didn’t get a photo of it hanging after it soaked and dried, but the twist seen in the photo above was gone. It hangs straight in a nice loop.

Overall, I’m pleased with the yarn. There are areas that are still somewhat tightly spun and areas where the fiber is nearly unspun and looks as if it could come apart with the slightest tug.  I feel like it was a good attempt at a new technique, and I’ll definitely try it again.

Warning!  Cuteness Ahead

Yesterday I spent a few hours at a local farm owned by a friend.  It’s the same one I visited last spring to see the sheep and lambs.  From that visit, I had photos of the lambs when they were a few months old.  It’s lambing season at that farm now, so all of the lambs are less than two weeks old.  My words can’t compete with the cuteness of these lambs, so I’ll just leave you with photos.

I’ve been working on spinning yarn using some new-to-me techniques over the past week or so.  It all started when I decided to spin up one of the batts that I made back in July, when I borrowed Kate’s drumcarder.  I’d been photographing them to put into my Ravelry stash, and I thought I should start using them. The particular batt in question was yellow, blue and white.  However, when I pulled it apart to begin spinning, I was surprised to find a layer of green in the middle.  The green was definitely added as a color, and not just a blend of the yellow and blue.

I didn’t put much thought into what I wanted to spin, I just sat down with the batt and started spinning.  When I had spun all 2.25 ounces as a single one one bobbin, I realized that I would have to decide what to do with it.  I’d spun it tightly enough that I didn’t feel that it would make a suitable single.  It would be too wiry as a single, so it definitely needed to be plied to soften it (this is what I get for not thinking about what/how I want to spin).

So, I explored my plying options.  I could navajo ply it on itself.  But, the color repeats in the single were short and the colors often wrapped around each other, and I didn’t think that this was an optimal case for this type of plying.  I could spin a single in one of the colors from the batt and make a two-ply yarn.  But, I had wanted to just use this fiber by itself.  I’m not sure what I want to do with the coordinating solid colors, but I wasn’t prepared to use them yet.

All that left me with (that I know of) was plying with another yarn.  I’ve got Intertwined which is all about making art yarns.  It’s been used before when I attempted the supercoil yarn, which I was very pleased with.  I remembered that there was instructions for thread plying yarn in the book.  I have a huge cone of royal blue wool/mohair blend lace weight that I picked up for next to nothing at the thrift store.  This seemed like a perfect opportunity to use it.

The important technique to remember when thread-plying a yarn is that the thread should be held with tension and the single allowed to wrap around it at an angle (as seen above), with only a little tension applied.    I’ve attempted thread-plying once before, and I did it the other way, allowing the thread to wrap around the yarn.  That skein is a bit of a disaster.  The thread is loose and sticks out from the yarn all over, which is not the effect I had been going for.

Depending upon the angle at which you hold the yarn against the thread, and the thickness of the single you can achieve different effects with plying.  Above you can see that just the thickness of the single changed as I kept the angle of the yarn against the thread consistent.   For the most part, my single was fairly thin compared to the yarns I see in the book and the art yarns that I’ve seen other people spin.

After the plying was finished, the wrapped yarn filled a good portion of the bobbin.  I’m a little concerned about how much the yarn seems to stick out from the base thread.  If you look at the yellow towards the middle of the bobbin in the photo below, you can see what I mean.  The single seems to almost float around the thread.  That is very different than the relationship between the thread and yellow single at the left/back end of the bobbin.  There, the two seem to form a gentle wave.  I’m hoping that when the yarn is wound off the bobbin and then soaked, that the arrangement of the yarn and thread will even out a bit.

This yarn is still sitting on the bobbin and needs to be soaked, dried and measured.  Photos of the final yarn are coming soon.