The three of us are heading to New Jersey at the asscrack of dawn tomorrow morning and I'm behind in the laundry/packing portion of the program. So I don't have time for pictures, unfortunately.

So far I have spun and plied two little balls of the purple Corriedale. The yarn isn't perfect, but for my first serviceable yarn, I think it's quite good! I am learning a lot. Since I don't spin quite uniformly yet, the density of both balls is quite different even though the thickness seems the same (heavy worsted). One ball is 44 metres and 40 grams. The second ball is 47 metres but 50 grams. That's quite a difference! Quite! I think I need a thesaurus.

I cast on with my first ball and knit a swatch. I didn't measure wpi first so I was surprised to find that it knits up best at about 4 stitches to the inch. By the look of it I was expecting 5st/1". The swatch itself seems way too heavy and thick, as well. While the yarn is balanced (doesn't twist back on itself after plying, yay!), I have obviously spun it too tightly for the amount of fibre in each ply. While it's pretty soft and squishy, it's not airy or lofty enough. The second ball, being 10 grams heavier for practically the same yardage, is even more dense. For my next attempt I'm going to concentrate on not giving the singles quite so much twist.

The other thing I noticed is that for the way I knit, I spun the yarn the wrong way. The plies want to untwist with the motion of my needles, leaving me with messy individual stitches in my stockinette. I spun it "backward;" I gave the singles an S-twist and plied with a Z-twist, and I read that as long as I'm consistent it shouldn't matter. For my particular knitting style, it does seem to matter quite a bit. My next batch will be twisted in the opposite directions.

For my next trick, spinning in the car!

What's this? It probably doesn't look like much to you, but to me it's a masterpiece. It's my very first yarn.

On Tuesday I went to my SNB, innocently planning to work like a fiend on my Peace Fleece cardigan that I wanted to finish and take on our trip next week. Rochelle said she had a little suprise for me and when I got there, she gave me a drop spindle and a bag of South African Fine roving. After I finally closed my mouth I tried to knit but I couldn't help thinking that I wanted to get home and try out the spindle.

When I got home, I tried to mimic the movements that I remembered Rochelle made while she spun. With the help of a book she lent me to get started, I spun, andean-plied, and washed the teeny yarn you see above. Since then I have been doing nothing other than fooling around on that spindle.

Now, and no disrespect meant to Rochelle because she is such a kind soul, the spindle she gave me was horrid. She told me it was horrid when she gave it to me, but she just wanted me to give it a whirl (HA HA HA) and see how I liked the concept. I can't thank her (or curse her) enough for giving me the spindle, horrid or no, because I am totally hooked. Yesterday morning we met up at Gemini Fibres where I bought myself the awesome Tom Forrester spindle you see in the photo above. What a difference! I also bought some burgundy and purple Corriedale roving. Above you can see my first attempts with the burgundy, which isn't too bad but it's under-plied. On the spindle I have the purple Corriedale and I'm just going to keep going with that until I have enough to knit with.

On Monday I'm putting a deposit down on a wheel. I know!

The sucker FELTED. I gave the sweater one last soak to block out the collar, and then I spun it in my machine. I usually have absolutely no trouble spinning wool but this time when I pulled it out, it seemed thicker somehow. I laid it out on my blocking board and smoothed it out and it was obvious that it had felted somewhat. It didn't shrink in width, but I lost about an inch in each sleeve and the total length of the sweater. I couldn't believe it. I guess next time it needs a bath I'm going to have to squeeze it out in towels instead. While I'm disappointed I can't trust the spin cycle for this yarn, I'm happy with the result of a little bit of felting.

Continue reading "Starsky Photos"

Okay, right after I wrote my last post I ripped the collar right back to the beginning of the short-row shaping, and started again. The way I was going I definitely wasn't going to have enough yarn and I thought the short-rows were too far apart anyway. I started the shaping 5 stitches before each marker instead of 7 stitches past, and I made the turns every 5 stitches instead of every 7. This saved me a lot of yarn, gave me the same depth of collar and slightly shorter lapels. I was going to steam block the collar with the iron but I decided to just wet block the whole thing again. I figure it'll be easier than fiddling. Pictures tomorrow! (Rochelle, thanks for the offer of the use of some longer needles, but I just couldn't wait until Tuesday.) I have some yarn left, but I don't think it's enough for the belt and loops.

In the meantime, I've been working on my Peace Fleece cardi. I had some trouble with my sleeve cap, but now that's all sorted out and I think it should fit the armscye just fine. So far I've completed the back and one sleeve, and I expect to get the second sleeve done by tomorrow night. Wish me luck!

Yeah, so whoever invented the short-row shawl collar needs to rot immediately in a thousand hells.

What a deceptive, evil collar. I may or may not be halfway done, I don't know. All I know is that I've been knitting it for an eternity and nothing is happening. My circular is too small for the number of stitches on there, and pushing the stitches around while I shift the weight of the entire sweater in my lap is making me want to apply poison ivy directly to my eyeballs. It's eating up way more yarn than I originally thought and now I know that not only will I not have enough yarn left to make a belt, I may not have enough to finish the collar. And I thought I'd be done yesterday afternoon. HA HA HA HA HA! Kill me.

On the other hand, I put the stitches on a bunch of circulars and tried the thing on. It looks pretty damn good, and I'm already planning a project in which I knit another collar in a similar fashion. You heard me.

Picking up stitches for a collar like the one on Starsky should not be done at night when you're kind of tired and your reading comprehension is lacking. I took a look at the pattern and saw that I was to pick up at the usual ratio of 3 stitches to every 4 rows, ending up with a number that is a multiple of 6 plus 3 extra stitches. I wanted to have a multiple of 6 plus 5 extra stitches, so that I could slip the first stitch of every row for a smooth bottom edge and have it not interfere with the 3x3 ribbing. I picked up stitches on both sides equally, at the same time, using waste yarn on the other side as a placeholder just to make sure I was picking up in the exact same spots. I picked up all around, counting as I went, and ended up with a perfect number. That is a lot of stitches. I worked two rows around. Then I read the pattern again.

[...] pick up and k 3 sts for every 4 rows along lower front edge to bottom of neckline shaping (marked with safety pin), 1 st for each row along right neckline edge [...]

FUCK.

I maintained the 3-to-4 ratio all the way around the neckline, picking up in every stitch only for the back neck. I thought about it, and realized that this would mean that I would have too few stitches at the neckline edge for the collar to lay flat at the sides when it was folded back. I ripped it all back to the first neckline edge and picked up again.

Instead of picking up in every row, I used the ratio of 5 stitches for every 6. Because my row gauge is tighter than the pattern's, I figured picking up in every stitch could cause the collar to ruffle a bit. I made it around to the other side where I realized I had picked up 7 stitches more on the left neckline edging than the right. Why did I suddenly have so many more stitches on the left edge than the right? I know when I knit the front pieces I knit them both with the same number of rows. I looked closely and realized I had marked the beginning of the neck edge too high on the right side. Rip. Rinse. Repeat.

Finally, on my third try, I got it right. I've got 275 stitches around. Before I went to bed I got halfway through the short-row shaping and with any luck I'll finish the collar this afternoon, when I'll be able to steam block it with the iron.

The good news is that it looks like I'll have enough yarn for both collar AND belt. Whew.

Seaming Starsky is taking me a bit longer than I thought. Well, only in terms of the sleeve caps. The sleeves and sides will be a snap, but after all that knitting I'm determined to set the sleeves in right, and I'm not rushing it. Last night I started and after seaming the shoulders, I set in the first sleeve. It took me a bit of fiddling; sewing and picking out, sewing and picking out. Finally I got it right. The calculations for knitting the caps were bang on and the sleeve fit perfectly, but I had to fiddle to make sure it lined up. By the time that was done, I put it away for the evening because I'd had enough. Today I'm doing the other sleeve and I hope I can get it in the same way as the first.

I draped the sweater over myself once the sleeve was in and tried to hold it together at the open seams to see if the shaping and fit were correct. I think it's working out! Apparently I added some waist shaping to the sweater (something I don't actually remember doing since I knit the body of the sweater in March and April) and it seems to be in the right place.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had finished another pair of socks at my SNB, and that I was unhappy with the fact that they didn't turn out matched up stripe-wise in the toe. I finally tried on the second sock and realized I had knit it too short. It's just short enough in the foot that I can feel the discrepancy when I put both socks on, so I'm going to have to rip back to before the toe shaping and add about 4 or 5 rounds. Highly annoying. The few rounds that I need to add won't be enough to match up the the final toe stripe, though.

In between seaming and sock fixing, I'm going to fish out all my single, unpaired socks and take an inventory. I think I have three left to knit mates for.

Remember Starsky? Well, we're going to Jersey in exactly three weeks and I want to bring a new sweater with me. Last night I finally worked out my adjusted sleeve cap shaping and finished knitting the first sleeve. All that's left to do now is knit the cap for the other sleeve, which I can do in about an hour and a half. While I'm doing that I'll have the fronts and back blocking, and hopefully tomorrow I can start the seaming process. Then it's shawl collar time, and I'll give myself two days for that. I've got three weeks, so why the rush? Because I want to also finish my Peace Fleece Cardi. I've knit the back and half of one sleeve so far.

I'm a little bit worried about not having enough yarn to complete Starsky. I just couldn't achieve row gauge. I'm knitting more rows to the inch than the pattern calls for and used up more yarn. I'm positive I'll have enough for the shawl collar, but I might not have enough for the belt. If that's the case, I'll just use some kind of pin to close the cardi in the meantime, and order another skein for the belt. I'm not worried about matching dyelots for something like the belt, I doubt it'll be obvious if the colour is slightly off.

I guess I'd better get cracking. I'm doing dinner in the crockpot tonight and I have to get that set up before I can wash and block anything, because I have to wash my knits in the kitchen sink. I really miss the huge utility sink that my mom has in her basement. It made washing large knits very easy.

I guess we got a decent amount of kids this year. Not so many you'd go crazy from getting up to answer the door, but we bought way too much candy and now I have to eat it. Also, Alex brought home more loot than we gave out.

So...want pictures of the cats?

Continue reading "Halloween 2006 (and Kitties)"