Swatchless

I haven’t really mentioned much about my Tour De Fleece progress, because it didn’t feel like I was making much progress.  I have been carding and spinning and carding and spinning, and the bobbins barely looked like they were filling up.  Finally today I had two bobbins full which I plied together.  I’m not all to thrilled about how lumpy and bumpy this yarn is….I should have carded the fiber more perhaps.  (Carding is NOT my favourite part of this process!)

Anyway, it’s pretty neat to see the transformation from this

washing fleece

to this

carding fleece

to this

spinning yarn

and finally this

spun yarn

But my progress seems much slower than those other fabulous spinners who are working from roving.  In any case, this yarn is going to eventually be turned into mittens.  I always find it nice to knit something for the farmer that gave me the fleece.  In this case, I don’t even know the farmer!  They will certainly be surprised.

To give myself a bit of a break, and make me feel productive on the spinning front, I started into some commercially prepared combed top that I purchased from Paradise Fibers.  I stuck it into my black bean dye (recipe) just to see what would happen, and after a day or two it turned a very light almost periwinkle blue.  I stuck part of it in some ammonia afterwards and that part lightened to a lichen green.

The fiber drafts like a dream, and I find that I’m spinning very thin, and consistent singles.  I was starting to doubt my ability when I was spinning that lumpy stuff I carded.  I am enjoying the subtle colour changes too–way more enjoyable than spinning white/offwhite speckled with grass.

For some other inspirational tour de fleece blogs with some awesome pictures, check these out.

• Word Lily
• I dream of sheep
• Leafgreen Knits

Ever since I saw the Top Down Bonnet pattern on Ravelry by Adrian Bizilia (helloyarn) I was smitten!  I made the original bonnet with the anime face on it, and sent it to a friend in Japan.  The ears aren’t sticking up, but they are there!

I’ve also made it without ears, and with stripes, for another friend’s baby.

Today I worked up another little variation.  I added some lace…

This is the lace pattern that I used.  Since I worked it in the round, row 2 and 4 are knit.  If this were worked flat, row 2 and 4 would be purl rows.

Row 1: (K1, K2tog, YO, K1, YO, SSK) repeat

Row 2: knit

Row 3: K2tog (YO, K3, YO, Slip 1, K2tog, pas the slip stitch over *this decreases 2 stitches*) repeat

Row 4: knit

After working 12 rows of lace, I cast off knitwise.  The edge kept rolling, so I added another border.  I will not admit to crocheting, because I didn’t actually use a hook.  This is my process:

Pick up a stitch through the cast off edge.  Work a chain of single crochet 2 times then crochet through the border again 2 stitches away from the first stitch.  Continue this (or something like it) around the edge of the bonnet.  It helped the border stay flat, and I think it makes it extra cute.

What do you do to spice up your regular patterns?

I sent out a request for test knitters for the hat pattern I wrote up earlier in the week, but I think everyone was feeling a little opposed to knitting winter hats while it’s so hot!

It’s a challenge to proof-read a pattern without going through the steps all over again, so….voilà…another hat!  This time it is made with Lion Brand Cotton Ease, a lovely soft blend of cotton and acrylic.  It is light weight and has more drape than the wool version.  It’s machine washable too!

The pattern will be available as soon as I can get a few good photos of it in action.

Would you like to add a little bit of colour to something that is already knit?  Duplicate stitch may be what you are looking for.  It can be used in the O Canada mittens (Olympic mittens) as an alternative to the stranded colourwork.  Follow the charts in duplicate stitch after the red mittens are completed.

You need:

• a darning needle, or a needle with an eye big enough for the yarn that you are using.
• yarn for duplicate stitch (contrasting colour to the original knit fabric)
• original knit fabric

What to do:

Step 1:  Thread your needle, and come up through a hole (at the bottom of a V) from the wrong side of the fabric.  The right side should be facing you.

insert needle through from the wrong side of the fabric to the right side.

Step 2: From the hole, follow the yarn upwards.  It will loop behind 2 strands of yarn and back down again.  That’s what you do with your yarn.  Trace the path with the needle!

insert the needle through both sides of a stitch one row up.

Step 3:  Pull the yarn through, you have now traced half a stitch.

Pull yarn through, you now have half a duplicate stitch!

Step 4:  Follow the other half of the stitch back down.  The needle will be inserted under 2 more strands of yarn.

Keep tracing the path of the yarn

Step 5: Pull the yarn tight and you can see one stitch, a little heart shape, in your contrasting colour.

One stitch has been duplicated!

With practice it gets pretty fast.  Just always remember to follow the path of the yarn and you’ll be fine.

several stitches complete (3 in the top row, 4 in the bottom row)

What other techniques would you like help with?

Well, ya never know what’s around the corner…I flipped to Ravelry yesterday to find an announcement to a party–a SEARCH PARTY!

The motivation was to have knitters/crocheters classify all the patterns on Ravelry,  and I guess to cull the pages with dead links.  They are getting ready to release a new search tool that will allow us to search based on many different attributes, from construction technique to the texture of the fabric.

Of course, knowing Ravelry, there are great incentives for us to comb through the patterns–a prize draw for some gorgeous prize packages. (photo credits: Ravelry.com)

I spent quite a bit of time online classifying things, I think I got 217 patterns done before they ran out of patterns to sort.

Knitters are truly amazing people–there are no limits to what a group of us can do!

Stop by and classify some patterns if you have a moment.  It’s gonna help keep Ravelry awesome!

When two fiber enthusiasts get together you’d better stand back–the fleece will be flying!

Tonight I had the pleasure of meeting Teira in person.  I’ve met her on Ravelry and through reading her blog, but to be in the same room with someone who is keen to discuss the ins and outs of washing fleece, or experiments with dyeing, or recent spinning wheel issues, was something very new for me.

What's on Teira's wheel?

Apart from meeting a new fiber friend, I learned a new skill tonight–combing wool.  Now, if you’ve never prepared a fleece before, you may not be familiar with this term.

Combing wool is different than carding wool.

Carding wool uses anything from a dog brush, to hand cards to a drum carder, but all of these tools are similar in that they are a surface that has small teeth placed in rows across the entire area.

image source: wikimedia.org dog brush

image source: pacificwoolandfiber.com hand cards

image source: clemes.com drum carder

Carding will leave you with a batt (a flat mass of fiber that has been brushed). There will still be short and long pieces, and there might still be bits of grass left in the batt–of course this depends on how fine the carding cloth is (the more teeth per inch, the better job it does of brushing out all the unwanted bits).

Combing, I realized tonight, is TOTALLY different.  The resulting fiber is smooth and uniform without any dirt or short pieces–those end up on the floor!  Also, and very important to know…combs could be weapons!  They have two rows of stainless steel tines that are very sharp.  Be very careful when using combs!

image source: bountifulspinweave.com

Here’s how to comb fleece:

Step 1:  Fix one comb to the table so it will not move.  Mini combs can be used one in each hand, but I don’t think I’m coordinated enough for that yet.

Step 2:  Load the locks (clumps of fleece) onto the stationary comb so that the butt end of the lock (the end that was cut off the sheep) is stuck in the teeth of the comb.  Don’t load it too full!

Step 3: Put the moving comb (teeth downward) into the locks starting at the tips and working toward the base.  Continue this until the fleece is almost entirely transferred to the moving comb.  All the short pieces will be left in the teeth of the stationary comb–discard these.

Teira demonstrates how to comb

Step 4:  Change combs–secure the full comb to the table, and use the empty comb as your moving comb.  Transfer the fleece back to the other comb by brushing in a similar fashion.

Step 5:  Using a diz (anything with a fine hole in it–Teira has a seashell), thread the combed fleece through the hole, grip tightly and pull the fleece through the hole to make a roving.  If the fleece is not combed open enough, the roving may not pull out nicely.  This part took the most practice for me!

Teira demonstrates the diz

There you have it, 5 steps to combing fleece!  Thanks so much Teira for the great lesson.

I knit a wool hat today.

It is close to 35 C with the humidity.  It’s the kind of heat that makes you want to go outside and lay on the grass under a sprinkler…if only we could have sprinklers.

This is the kind of heat that conjures up memories of being in a phone booth at noon in Kyoto in August.  It’s a sticky muggy heat when sweat seems to trickle at even the thought of moving.

And I knit a hat……I must be going crazy.

Now, to find someone crazy enough to model it….

Note:  The pattern will be coming soon, in case someone in the southern hemisphere feels like wearing wool.

I’ve been working away with the tour de fleece, but there’s not much to show for what I’ve done.  It’s slow going.  It’s HOT and humid.  I think that’s the biggest issue.  I really don’t want to even look at fleece right now.  I’m not complaining, I know that in January I was asking for the heat.

Little by little I’m carding and spinning up thick singles right now.  With the heat, and the short intervals of spinning time I’m not making great progress, and what’s worse is that I’m getting bored already with spinning white fleece.  That’s a lie, it’s not entirely white.  It’s coloured by the flecks of desperate vegetable matter still clinging to the wool….

I think on a cooler day, that the yarn will look rustic and natural and make really warm and sturdy mittens, but right now I’m thinking of iced tea not mittens!

In other wheel spinning action, my trusty 3 speed bike is now working again!  It had a terrible run-in with a whipper snipper last week which left the tire wall threadbare.  Thanks to my dad, his tools and WD40, we got the tire changed in record time.

whipper snipper was the last straw

Now, don’t feel too sorry for me…the bike is and always will be a bit of a junker–the kind of bike that is worth less than the lock.  It’s my favourite summer transportation though, and I was eager to get it back on the road.

This tire may have doubled the worth of the bike!

If the weather stays like this, I may just ride to the lake and jump in!

What are you doing to stay cool?

I walked downtown today to have a look at the arts and crafts fair by City Hall.  Now, when I think of arts and crafts, of course, I’m hoping for wool or knitted things of some kind on display.

Alas, it was not to be.  There were some amazing visual artists, and potters and wood workers, but among all of those tents, not one had knitting.

The weather was great, and there was some fabulous didgeridoo music, and a group of tai-chi masters doing their thing.  I’m glad so many people were out and about enjoying the day.

In the middle of Eclipse, during the tent scene, I found myself reaching for pen and paper to jot down the design for Bella’s striped hat.  I paused, realizing what a geek this action made me, but continued to write furiously, until I had figured out most of the striped pattern.

image source: http://4.bp.blogspot.com

For some reason, this picture shows the hat in green and white stripes, but in the movie I’d swear it looked more grey.  In any case, I came home and rummaged through my stash, and came up with this design.

Here’s the pattern, in case you’d like to make your own. [Ravelry]

click to get .pdf pattern

Bella’s Eclipse Hat

Needles: Size 4.5mm – 5.5mm DPN (what ever size you need to achieve gauge)

Yarn: grey and white worsted weight yarn

Gauge: 4.5 sts per inch

Cast On 88 stitches in grey.

Join in the round, being careful not to twist. Work 2 inches of K1, P1 ribbing.
Knit 5 rows white
Knit 3 rows grey
Knit 2 rows white
Knit 1 row grey
Knit 3 rows white
Knit 5 rows grey
Knit 2 rows white
Knit 3 rows grey
Knit 1 row white
Knit 2 rows grey
Knit 3 rows white

Working in grey yarn only begin decreases:
(K9, K2tog) around. 80 sts remain
K round (K8, K2tog) around. 72 sts remain
K round
(K7, K2tog) around. 64 sts remain
K round
(K6, K2tog) around. 56 sts remain
K round
(K5, K2tog) around. 48 sts remain
(K4, K2tog) around. 40 sts remain
(K3, K2tog) around. 32 sts remain
(K2, K2tog) around. 24 sts remain
(K1, K2tog) around. 16 sts remain
K2tog around. 8 sts remain
Break yarn and draw through remaining stitches. Weave in all ends.