Knitwhim Diaries 16: iVlog

FOs

Delicate Crochet Butterfly by Anne Halliday

WIPS

Passione Amorosa By O Rose

Seedling dreams by Amy Beth

Spinning Lorna's Laces Merino

People

ESK

Mandobug Crafts

Penguin Soup

Jeanne

Random Mentions

crochet so fine by Kristin Omdahl

Bramble Shawl

MUSIC BY 

Nick

Knitwhim Episode 14 : Knitting and Sewing and Dying - Oh My!

FOs

None  :(

WIPs

Ictis by Boo Knits

Something Pretty  By Millie Makes

Cotton Spinning

Sample spin - Spanish Peacock Russian Spindle

Enabling

Inglenook Fibers

People

Spindle Candy

Pack It On Challenge

Hipstrings

Mandobug Crafts

Inglenook Fibers

Spanish Peacock 

Sabrina's Sample

Hello Blog,


Today I have a bit of a spinning FO.  1.8 ounces spun up into approximately 190 yards of 'fingering weight' yarn.  19 WPI.

Not sure what the fiber was, all I know is that it came from Maryland Sheep and Wool from what seems like 100 years ago. It's probably Merino though. Staple length is relatively short compared to what I'm used to spinning. 

Spun this as a single all on one bobbin and then chain plied it to get a three ply. Seems like light fingering/heavy lace weight to me. Ish. It blows my mind how imprecise those definitions can really be.

Spun this up for my sister. Not sure what she will do with it, but  I hope she likes it :) 

As always, check out more FOs at Tami's. 

KnitWhim Podcast Episode 9 Show notes

Hi blog!  Going to do something a little different today and actually post show notes for my video blog. It's been a little crazy this past month due to the holidays, but I hope to go back to more regular posting after the new year :)

Watch Episode 9

FOs

Stjarna by Karolina Eckerdal
Mini Sweater by Emily5446
Thorpe by Kirsten Kapur
Chelsea Market Hat by Caryl Pierre
Damask Shawl by Kitman Figueroa
Gale's Art 100% Organic Polworth in Sherlock.

FROGGED

Mitts of no particular design

WIPs

Something Pretty by Millie Makes

OTHER CRAFTS

Kawaii Winter Cross Stitch Sampler

Mentioned

MandoBug Crafts Podcast
Knitflicks Podcast
Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery Ravelry group
Completely twisted and arbitrary Ravelry Group.

Spinning FO

Hey blog!

I recently finished spinning 4 oz of 100% organic Polwarth from Gale's Art. It was amazing fiber and I can't wait to get some more!

Here are some pictures :)

400 yards 18 WPI.

As always check out Tami's for more FOs! 

Destress with spinning

Hello all,

So I missed a week of posting.  I've always known that knitting and spinning are really helpful ways to manage stress, but I think I sort of took it for granted. I took a few weeks off of spinning, because I got a bit of a spinning injury doing that lace. I felt so frazzled and stressed without my spinning! Knitting can be useful for destresing, but only if it's simple. I've been making mistake after mistake in my knitting lately so I've just been taking it easy with some granny squares.  I started missing spinning so much that I pulled out my little supported spindle from Hipstrings and worked on my cotton spinning a bit.

But today I started spinning a braid from galesart on my wheel. ooooooh, Wheel how I missed you!

Galesart is the highlighted artest for this cycles SAL in the Completely Twisted and Arbitrary group on raverlry. SALs are so useful and helpful for learning and for inspiration! I know my spinning has improved exponentially with the two SALs that I've already done, and look forward to learning more from the spinning community :)

Also round 1 of Nerd Wars ended! I successfully Dwarfed The Nebula, which is just a fancy way of saying I completed all five challenges. It is not a requirement, but you get a fancy badge and bragging rights if you do.

 

 

I also got an honorary badge from Team one more page because I mentioned a book (The Belgaraid by David Eddings ) in one of my challenge posts!

 



Spinning FO

Hey blog!

Today's post is a Spinning FO. I participated in two different SALS with this 4 oz braid of BFL. I'm really enjoying the SALs because they encourage me to try new things and I get exposed to new things that I might not have heard of otherwise! I've learned a LOT from doing the New-to-you Spin along with The Yarnraising podcast, and I also entered this in Fat Squirrels squirreled away SAL ^^;; Squee!

So this was a birthday present last year. I really thought I was going to buy myself a wheel for christmas last year but it just didn't pan out, bit of a bummer, but I got my wheel this August so this story has a happy ending :) I've been saving this braid until I felt like I had practiced a bit on the wheel, and so I was confident that I wouldn't  "ruin" it.

What I did was split the braid in half and spin each half on a seperate bobbin in order to do a two ply. The idea with this was to maintain the color changes without chain plying. On that end it was only a partial success, I did maintain some of the color change BUT I also got some barber polling. This is a combo of not splitting the braid evenly (maybe) and also because I didn't spin both singles consistantly. One was noticably thiner than the other. Oh well.

I am very pleased with the yarn over all though. At 26-30 WPI its the closest to lace weight I've ever spun. I also paid a lot of attention to the plying this time because I prefer yarns with a tighter twist in the ply and I feel like my previous yarns perhaps didn't have as much plying twist in them as I probably wanted. 

Ended up with 700 yards in the main skien. I had extra on one bobbin and got maybe 40 yards of chain ply from that :)

Thanks for reading, make sure to check out the other cool FOs at Tami's!

WIP Tuseday

Hello!

Things are brewing up around here. Lots of plans for future spinning projects

The fall issue of Ply magazine is pretty awesome! I've never read a craft magazine so chock full of interesting and useful articles! 

MKAL is progressing. I've got about 20 rows  left on clue 3. The 4th and final clue is already out.... Must knit faster....

FO to the MANX

Hello! How are you today?  I'm doing pretty good. Preparing for Shop Hop and the start of Nerd Wars, so My WIPs have been rather light this week. I did, however, finish some spinning!

This is 8oz of Manx Loaghtan from GnomeSpunYarn. I split it up and spun it on to three bobbins in order to do a traditonal 3-ply.   Result is a very springy smooshy worsted weight yarn (10 WPI). It's exactly what I wanted to spin so I'm pretty stoked. In retrospect, the plying twist does seem pretty loose. I like it (its fine, not falling apart or anything, plenty of store bought yarns are plied this loose ), but I wonder what effect it will have on the wearbility. I'm pretty sure more twist = more durability. 

I got a bit over 400 yards so I'm hoping to do a simple garter stitch hat + mittens with this ^^;; 

Despite careful planning, weighing, and use of math, I still ended up with a bit of extra on one bobbin. I'll chain ply it just for some back-up yardage. 

This yarn was my first entry in Malia's New to You SAL. I hope to do at least one more, it runs until the end of October. 

Check out Tami's for more FOs! 

Death by Kool-Aid

Hello Blog!


Today is going to be pretty photo heavy, ok? ^_^

Took my hand-spun



And this set up  (these are just the swatches, I used glass mixing bowls to dye the actual yarn )



To end up with this!



It's my first pound of fiber spun on the wheel. I got several skeins in different weights. Three (the blues and greens ) are worsted/bulky, the other two (red/purple) are fingering-ish

My friend Amanda also came over and did hers. She used  This tutorial to do three long color stripes.



Pretty, right?




Some notes : I got two packets of each color, and it wasn't really enough. We used everything up and there were definitely some parts of the yarn that ended up lighter than the rest due to lack of dye. Everything was dyed with the Kool-Aid except the green color, which was Hawaiian punch, works the same way!
 Also, this stuff will seriously dye your hands :)

Prep work

Hello blog!

Lots to say this week, so I guess I'll just jump right in. Even though the weather outside hasn't really started to change yet, I'm definitely starting to feel the pull of fall. My whole attitude towards knitting/crafting starts to change the closer we get to autumn, most notably the need to organize and prepare everything.

Wanted to buy this so badly. Please someone help me justify going back and getting this 0.0

First off I finished spinning my first pound on my wheel! After the first 4 ounces of 'practice' fiber which ended up being 68 yards of thick and thin bulky, I spun 8 ounces of singles and then two-plied them. Plying them regularly was waaay easier than my bumpy attempt at chain plying on the wheel (even managed to break my drive band with the second attempt yesterday, but that is a whole other story). This yielded two skeins at about 260 yards each. They are still drying but early WIP suggests a range of about 16-20. That makes it a heavy lace/fingering weight!  We'll see if the fiber gains any significant width after washing. I have to say I was pretty proud of myself for accidently spinning so thin - 3 ply fingering weight is my ultimate goal and this seems like a pretty hopeful omen. However realizing that I don't have the skill/talent yet to spin the weight I want on purpose takes some of that away.

Decided to spin my last 4 ounces in an attempts to get a 3-ply bulky to match my first bit. Its a little thinner over all than my first sample, and more consistent, coming in to a heavy worsted/bulky weight. At about 100 yards, hoping to combine the two to get a hat!

Anyway, stay tuned to this channel, once the yarn dries I plan to dye everything with kool-aid!

Wheel-come to the Blog!

Hello Blog!

Sorry in advance if I come off as a little hyper today. But I have a new member of the family that I would like to introduce. Long time readers may know about my long-held desire for a spinning wheel, and after years of waiting and obsessing, I finally have one!

I ordered a Kromski Minstrel from Winderwoodfarm on Etsy. And I'm sooooo pleased with it! The wheel came in pieces, and while technically assembling it was "simple" and "easy", it was not as easy as I thought it would be. I couldn't get the legs in by myself and had to get my husband to hold it for me so I could pound them in.

Of course I've been spinning as much as possible since. I bought the wheel in a package that came with extra bobbins, a niddy noddy, and plenty of fiber to get started!  I've heard a lot of people on the internets say that you should expect to spin a pound of wool as a 'getting to know you' period, so that's what I'm doing! I've decided to take a no-stress experiment-without-goals approach to my first pound. Its white domestic, and I plan I dying it with kool-aid after :)

I've already filled one bobbin with almost 4oz, and have a little over an ounce loaded on bobbin number 2.  Be sure to check back for more spinning updates in the future!

Also, if you are more of a visual person, I'll be talking about  gushing over my new wheel on episode 2 of my video blog, which will hopefully go live later today. Is now Live.
Until next, cheers!

WIP - New Things

Hello!

So, I'm finally back from my honeymoon (yay!) and have got my work schedule ironed out. Hopefully for good. For a brief second there I thought I was going to be working a night shift, and that would have been a nightmare for me right now. Dodged that one.
there are LOTS of works in progress today, so we'll just sample a few, shall we?

First up. I bought  a spinning wheel! - But it's back ordered, so it's a shipping WIP :P

Next, I am experimenting with doing a knitting vlog! If you are interested please check it out here.  Its about 30 minutes long and I'm not going to lie, it's a bit rough. I'm having some tech issues so there is one section where every other word I say seems to get skipped, but I'm pushing through! I know if I can endure *that* humiliation I might have skin thick enough to keep it up :)

Ok. Now for the knitting.  Home Made Glove pattern :

(there will also be a blue stripe added as I continue ^^;; )


New Lace Shawl in Berroco Vintage DK, The pattern is Damask

That's all for now, Hopefully there will be some FO's later this week :)
If you want to see more WIPS, check out Tami's!

Bloggable Bags

Hello and welcome to another WIPW post!  If you've come to me from Tami's, hi! Welcome :)  I'm recovering from a bit of a bloggers dry spell and since I've already shown you the Bramble shawl a bajillion times, and since it still isn't done looks the same, I guess I will distract you with random photos!

I've been catching up on the Fat Squirrel Speaks podcast, and by catching up you should understand I mean watching them all from the first episode in order. Hello. I'm crazy. But anyway, I started getting a little jealous because she has all of these cute project bags, and each project has it's own bag so they don't get all tangled up and the pattern for the project you want is easy to find. Now, I'm too cheap to buy these things I and I don't have a sewing machine. So, bags pictured above?  They are the pull string cloth bags that   bed-sheet sets come in. You know, the cheap ones sold at Wallmart and Target?  They make perfect project bags.

The red one contains my beaded lace cowl and the plaid one has my spinning WIP. I might have mentioned this before but there is an Alpaca farm 11 minutes from my house. I know right????  It's my first time spinning Alpaca (I have 2 ounces of it ). Not sure what to think. On the one had it's SUPER soft, like a bunny, BUT the fiber is on the hairy wiry side, so it feels like I'm holding a cloud of super soft dog hair. which is both pleasant and icky at the same time for me (not a dog person. ) 

Anyway, I'm about halfway done, and I think I want to do it as a two ply, but I'm not anticipating having enough yardage to actually knit anything. Just kinda want to get a feel for what Alpaca is like to spin! 

FO : Wurm

Hello everyone,

Today I have an extra special FO to show you all. It started with a Christmas present from my sister

5.2 oz of BFL that got spun up on my drop spindle.  This braid contained most of my favorite colors. Purples, blues, grays... It was gorgeous. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to N-ply it, because that's the only way I know how to easily preserve the color transition with plying, and I didn't want it to be all barber-pole like. Those yarns are pretty to look at but I'm never sure what to knit with them. Besides I thought it would mute out the colors and make them all look muddy. 

I wanted to spin fingering weight - and parts of the finished yarn ARE fingering weight - but over all it's a solid worsted yarn. WPI varies between 8-12, and it ended up surprisingly even all things considered. Not that there weren't patches of too-thick or too-thin spots. But over all, I'm very proud of how the whole project turned out. 

Normally for spinners, I guess this would be the "end" of the "finished" spinning project. But of course I'm still mostly a knitter, so I couldn't wait to make something with the yarn. I cast on the Wurm hat with US6 needles, and did almost 5 repeats of the rib pattern before being forced to decrease and bind off - used all put a small bit of the yarn. Love the pattern, love the hat. Love everything. 

My favorite part of the pattern is that the brim is doubled. You knit 21 rows, with a purl row in the middle, fold it up, and knit around picking up and knitting together 1 live stitch with 1 stitch from the CO edge. Brilliant, and supper warm, without having to knit the whole thing doubled or with bulky weight ^__^

 

Don't stop here, you know you want to see more FOs

Random Tuesday

Hello everyone, 

It's kinda rainy and dark out this afternoon, but I thought I'd pop in for a brief update. It's been awhile since I've checked my mail, since all I have is a PO Box right now, so I stopped at the post office today and sure enough : 






The first packet is my 2nd braid from Willow Mist Acres Braid Bonanza club, the second is a solicitation for a knitting magazine subscription. I included it in this photo because I was just so tickled pink to be getting yarn junk-mail. Just finding an envelope with the words "Love of knitting" on them put a big grin on my face. I'm not really big on knitting magazines though, so I'm not really familiar with love of knitting at all, and had to google it when I got home to see what it was all about. 
Anyway, enough talk, I'm sure you want to see what the fiber looks like :





Once again, I love the colors!!!!  Especially the orange and the teal! ZOMG ^^;;
For refference, here is my current progress with the first braid :

The first braid was 5.2 oz (there was a bit extra thrown in ) The second one is 4 oz.

Side Note

Nearly four years ago, I was still a relatively new knitter. I'd been knitting for just over a year, and I had moved out of my parents house and gone off to college. By all accounts, college was pretty cool, but the thing I miss most about it, is the LYS that was an easy 2 mile walk from where I lived. I was introduced to spinning in that LYS. Spinning on a drop spindle. And while I fell in love instantly I knew that the drop spindle was not for me. I knew that I was destined for other, larger, spinning tools. I simply didn't have the time or the money for such a large indulgence.  Since then I've graduated, joined the Navy, and gone to school all over again. I promised myself as a graduation present from A-school, I would finally buy that wheel.

Now, don't get too excited. I haven't actually graduated yet. But my graduation is a mere 3 months away, so I've already started to plan. Reading books, watching videos, joining Ravelry groups. And I discovered something. In these last four years, my tastes have changed.

I always thought that when I did eventually buy a wheel, it would be the Ashford Traveler.

Aesthetics are deeply important to me, and I find the castle-style wheels to be the most attractive. Ashford is a deeply respected name, and of course, it falls into the nice $500 price range.

But in my recent research, I have found that while a majority of knitters learned on, or owned a traveler at one point, they all eventually upgraded to other wheels. I'm not currently looking to own multiple wheels, I just want one. So I started looking into the slightly more expensive wheels.

One big priority I have now is that my wheel needs to be portable, and so out of all of the wheels out there, the very very new schacht sidekick is starting to call out to me

The downside is that it's new, so there aren't a lot of people who have one yet, or people who have serious complaints about it. But it seems to have everything I want. Stability, quality, and portability.  The only real complaints I've heard about it come from knitters who own 5 or 6 different wheels, and these knitters tend to be very nit-picky about very small things. As a complete beginner, I know that I'll probably imprint on whichever wheel I learn on and love it completely. This wheel is nice because if I ever want to upgrade, the Schacht Matchless is completely compatible with it, so I wouldn't have to buy all knew bobbins and stuff.  Sure, the Sidekick is more expensive, but I've been knitting for a long time now and I'm confident that I'll be spinning even longer. They say that the Schacht wheels are like the sports cars of the spinning world. 

I think I can live with that.

A little spin at the fair

In order to distract from the fact that I remain 6 rows away from the end of the sunshine shawl, I'd like to show you this :

They had a county fair this weekend, and Friday was free admittance for Military types so I Went with a bunch of friends ^^;; All I was really looking for was some fresh squeezed lemonade and funnel cake, but what I got was a whole room full of women on spinning wheels (not pictured) with a bunch of hand-spun yarn and hand-spun knitted garments. It was amazing, and across from that room was the natural dyes garden. Made my day.

Anyways, there's a spinning workshop this weekend, and I think I might go. So, fingers crossed.

Cheers

Violetly WIP-ing

Dear Blog,

It is fall. I know this not because the air has turned crisp and sweet-smelling, or because of the changing colors of leaves, but because of the even more deeply and intuitively derived senses that are common to all knitters. What's on our needles? Hats, scarfs, and mittens. What is the fiber of choice? Wool, or to those not inclined, at least something decently warm and cushy.

Something not universal to knitters, but no less a dead give away to the return of Autumn for me is the color of my knitting. For fall it's undeniable that purple is my preferred color. Purple is definitely to be found in my current WIPs.

First a hat, my second go at a beloved pattern : Laural

Second, some glorious spinning

Spinning progress;

The bad : Validating the drop-spindles' name by ubiquitous dropping, continued irregularity of spinning, difficulty in attaching new bits of fiber

The good : Spinning is slowly but surely becoming more consistent. The thick-and-thin sections are mostly clumped around the places where I have to join new bits of fiber. In my head I've worked out a perfect solution to avoid this problem that involves judicious pre-drafting. Perfect in theory but as-yet to be tried successfully under lab conditions.

Don't drop the spinning

A few days ago I started spinning again. It's a funny story how this happened. I went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool, and this year I went with (most) of my family; Mom, Dad, two of my brothers, and two sisters. After sitting in traffic for 2 hours and eating a yummy but not very filling lamb burger, and a hot dog, I started looking at the vendors. Now it was crowded and moving around was hard, so in the end I didn't even get to look at half of the booths, (but that's not the point). Cordell, who has a technically slanted mind, took one look at a display of spinning wheels and decided he wanted one. I tried to console him by telling him he could learn to spin on a drop spindle but he said that they were 'dumb' and he wanted a wheel. (Secretly I kinda agree, there's something really romantic about a spinning wheel that the drop spindle just can't beat). Anyway, I was frantically trying to decided what my souvenir should be this year (cause I only ever buy one thing ) And honestly, I wasn't seeing anything that really called out to me. Most of the yarn you can buy other places, and my stash is already big enough, I don't need a bunch of single balls of unique yarns. Finally, I found a stall selling beginners spindles. There was a stall that was selling CD spindles like mine for 15 bucks, plus a bit of fiber, but I think my CD spindle is too heavy and unbalanced and wanted to trade up, I ended up getting an $8 dollar Ashford spindle, and some 'scrap fiber" For Cordell and Melodie. And sure enough, even though Cordell had said that drop spindles were lame, he immediately took possession of the spindle. I gave them both lessons on how to use it and it became clear almost immediately that the small scraps of fiber I had bought for 75 cents wasn't going to be nearly enough. (You know, I thought they'd think it was cool and then get bored of it that same day, and I take the spindle home with me). Instead, I ended up giving them a large chunk of the fiber I'd bought at A Tangled Skien the last time I got the urge to spin. I figured I wasn't spinning it, so they might as well, right?

I did save myself a small bit because all of that teaching had given me the taste for it and as they say, the rest is history.

I'm sill having trouble with this fiber, it's hard for me to draft, I'm pretty much pre-drafting it to the size I want before I spin, but I'm still having problems; first my singles were underspun, and then I started spinning too thin and having it break. I spun until my CD spindle refused to spin anymore, and then I plied it using a technique which I believe is called 'navajo plying'. If anyone out there is still wondering how hard it is to navajo ply on a drop spindle, let me tell you; It's easy. When I first read about it/Watched you tube videos of it, I thought it looked way too hard to do on a spindle, but it's not. It's actually easier than spinning a consistent width which I still can't do ^^;;

Anyway, I don't think I'll have enough yarn to knit anything with, but I'm def back in the spinning game. For the first time in a long time, spinning 'real' yarn seems doable to me.