highlandheffalump

YOP8 – Week 29/52

Knitting

Frogging

Oh my goodness, what a pickle I got in trying to frog the jumper I mentioned last week.  I had done such a good job at weaving in the ends, I couldn’t find them!  Plus I forgot which direction I had knit it, so started trying to unravel it in the wrong direction!  So the scissors had to come out, a couple of times.

 

I ripped out and re-started my Northeasterly blanket to change down a needle size.  I also wasn’t enjoying the method of increasing stitches, so I started doing fbf, then switched to doing a couple of different methods as I was getting a weird line on one side. I even tried going back to the original increase but there’s no way I will have motivation to knit a whole blanket with fiddly stitches so frequent.  The thing is it is quite addictive and I unpicked what fingering weight mitred squares I had made to do a few more tries with other increases and used some homespun yarn too.  Any tips for avoiding that ridge on the left side of the middle?  I am out of scraps now so it will be parked for a bit.

 

WIPs 

I did a few rows of Lintilla and a few on Void.  I now understand the appeal of having different projects on the go.  Lintilla is long easy rows of knitting with occasional ripples to work on, Void requires concentration on every row, Northeasterly is good when you don’t have enough time for long rows of a shawl…and oh my does Void get long…or should that be wide?! 

Ready to Cast On

I found a toe up pattern to try for my January socks in the KAL and have chosen a nice local sock yarn, so I will cast on those on Sunday…so hopefully a photo next week.

Spinning

I had some fun playing with my blending board this week making some more rolags and spinning them on my wheel.  (The white balance of the photos on the bobbin is off.  We have so few hours of daylight at the moment, it is a challenge to get accurate pictures.)  I used some sugar plum merino and mulberry silk blend, with some home dyed mohair and some sari silk waste.  The idea being to practice making a tweed type yarn (on my YOP list).  I think officially tweed is supposed to have wool flecks, not silk, but I am counting this as a first attempt at tweed.  

I made some other rolags on my blending board using the Himilayan custom blend from World of Wool (white merino with sari silk) mixed with some dyed merino wool in greens and deep purples. My husband likes the rolags before they are spun and thinks I need to find some way of doing a picture just using the rolags!  I may have a think about it…perhaps a box frame??  Anyhoo, I put my big brave girl pants on and went to the Highland Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers and someone showed me how to do long draw drafting, rather than short forward drafting I have been doing.  This method gives you a woolen yarn (softer and warmer) rather than worsted yarn (smooth, hard wearing).

The Guild was very hot and noisy with 40+ women chatting and spinning and I found I can’t do both at the same time!  I am pretty happy with my first day doing a new method.  I left at 3pm because I was getting sore shoulders, so didn’t manage to finish all the rolags, so it isn’t plied yet.  I will finish them this week, ply them and maybe knit them into my northeasterly!  Depends on my final length and thickness of the yarn.

No felting this week but I did prep some squares of black Icelandic wool fibre with some sari silk on my blending board.  The idea being to test joining the squares together so they form one long rectangle.  We will see how that works out and I will post some pictures when it is done.

21 comments

  6. All your spinning is lovely! I too like to have various projects going for different lengths of time and concentration. That looks like a lot of work taking that sweater apart but you did it! Yes, I need to get back to my socks too. I can’t wait to see yours. They are my first toe-up also.

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  7. I am not seeing a strange ridge on the left side of your Northeasterly. It looks good to me! You have such pretty spinning happening. Am loving the tweed you did. I believe it is always good to have more than 1 item going. That way, if you get bored or in a pickle with one project, you can set it aside and work on another for a little while.

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  8. Great progress and what a lovely selection of projects. I can see the line but all increases have pros and cons and you have to weigh them off against the look you like and want I’m afraid. I really love the spinning and the aim to spin some tweed yarn. A day to spend with a guild of spinners sounds wonderful, I think I’d need to head to the city to get that here and is a woolen spin something you were also looking to learn this year? Will you find it useful for other yarns you want to spin and projects you will want to make from the handspun yarn?

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    • Thanks, I think for the ease of the kfb I am going to stick with it and live with the ridge. I know I don’t have it in me to do tricker stitches on it…on Void I don’t mind it’s trickier stitches but the yarn is so stretchy they are still easy to do. The ribbed hat I knit for my husband with the Corriedale he doesn’t find as warm as other hats and I think that’s because I spun that worsted (as that’s all I really knew). So spinning woollen for warmer cosier things like hats or fluffy warm jumpers or scarves etc. But woollen is ideal for socks and things that need to be harder wearing, so I’d include gloves in that. Or even spinning semi worsted which is a woollen prep like rolags but spun like worsted should give a warmer yarn…apparently. I am lucky that given the size of the Highlands they actually meet just 5 miles from my house. Many guild members are on the north or west coast and even some of the Isle of Skye, so some live well over 100 miles away. I prefer the smaller felting group as there’s only about 8-10 of us and you can all took together. It was a bit overwhelming at the Guild, I’m an introvert. I think when they do some workshops I will go along as they apparently split into smaller groups.

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      • Thank you, that makes total sense as to why you’d opt for one and use one over the other. Spinning is something if I had the time I’d like to take up so I’m always interested in hearing about it. I get how overwhelming a large group like the Guild to be and secretly I’m ok with it being in the city for me, then I wouldn’t have to force myself to go to something similar to learn. I hope they have the smaller workshops that you can enjoy attending a lot more.

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      • If you want to learn then a small amount of a fibre like Shetland that has a lot of crimp may be good place to start with a spindle, which you can buy very reasonable priced ones. I learned via YouTube mostly.

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  9. It is so interesting to read about your carding and spinning, Liz. This is all pretty foreign stuff to me. The blue/green rolags and spun yarn are all just gorgeous. And I love your first tweed attempts. 🙂

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