Swatchless

I’ve been enjoying a luxury knitting project these past two weeks.  I spun up one package of alpaca roving from Island Alpaca, that I picked up on my vacation.  It is incredibly soft, and made a wonderful DK weight 3 ply yarn.

The yarn has traveled with me and has slowly been transformed into a pair of mittens.  These mittens will be an excellent autumn/spring pair, and will serve as the most soft and toasty liner mittens all winter long.  Look at the halo that has developed already!

Mitten #1 was completed last week after a night at the movies

Mitten #2 was worked on during a few meetings, and is now almost complete

I thought that I had spun enough roving for two mittens.  My estimation skills are usually pretty good.  These mittens are a little extra long in the cuff, which might explain why I ran out of yarn.

Whatever the reason….I was so close!!!  There’s half of the thumb left to do.  I’m guessing that it will just take a few more meters of yarn, but that requires me to sit down at the spinning wheel.

In any case, I’m sure these will be finished before it gets cool enough to need them.

This afternoon I delivered my second pay it forward handmade gift.  I signed up back in November to do a pay it forward challenge, where I had a year to make 3 gifts and send them to the first three people that signed up on my blog, provided that they also promise to make 3 gifts, and pay it forward to other people.

Since November, I have sent a pair of mittens to Lisa

…and I have received a lovely package from the sweet sheep

…and today I delivered a package to Noor–the very first pair of butterfly mittens made from my handspun yarn.

These are the mittens that are inside the package.

When I arrived, she was in the midst of applying henna, so I got to watch and learn.

It’s neat to get a glimpse into other cultures, and their traditions.  Henna is applied to decorate women’s hands during celebrations.

This weekend is Eid, a celebration which marks the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting.

This is the colour that the henna stains the skin, after the paste dries and comes off.

Thanks for the tea, goodies, and interesting lesson today Noor!

How have you payed it forward today?

Isn’t it cute…..

image source: fnpw.org.au

This is a possum.  They are a marsupial that are native to Australia, but were introduced in the 1800′s to New Zealand.  Lacking predators, the possum population exploded, and they have become a menace.  They have even been called the “#1 noxious animal in New Zealand” according to Paradise Fibers.

image source: http://howtogetridofpossum.blogspot.com/

Possums have been harvested in New Zealand to keep the population in check.  Their fur, blended with wool, has been used as spinning fiber.  Possum fiber is hollow which makes it a luxury fiber that is very light and soft.  It is durable, and does not pill, and also won’t make people itchy.  More information can be found at the mohair store.

image source: www.wholesale-yarn.com

Why the sudden interest in possum fiber??  It all started with a squishy package that arrived in my mailbox not too long ago.  It came all the way from New Zealand!  My friend, and traveling buddy, Clare went on an amazing summer vacation, to see winter down under.  While adventuring, she found a lovely merino-possum blend, and sent it to me on the other side of the world.

Rimu: 60% merino 40% possum

So….now I’m wondering what to make from 50g (128m) of DK weight yarn.  It’s gotta be something pretty special–the yarn is so soft and smooth, lightweight and warm.

What pattern(s) would you recommend?

Franklin was inspired by a teenage girl I met a few years ago, who wore a slouchy hat to school every day.

Knit in wool, or alpaca, Franklin will keep you cozy and stylish as temperatures begin to drop.  Knit in cotton or bamboo, it can be your signature piece all year round.

The pattern is easy to modify, with extra rows to increase the amount of slouch.

Yarn:  Worsted/Aran weight.
Needles:  5.5mm circulars or DPNs, cable needle
Gauge: 4.5 sts and 7 rows per inch in reverse stockinette stitch (gauge is not crucial except at brim)
Skills:  Cast on, Knit, Purl, Working in the round, increases, decreases, introduction to cables

Download your FREE pattern in .pdf format

Many thanks to Abby and Zoe for being models.

If you like this pattern, check out my others!

This is what is going on outside my window….

car alarms are honking….wonder if they got hit by lightning….

I was outside on my balcony before the rain started, watching the sky light up!

(not sure where the lightning is in this one…hope it’s not hitting my building!)

I came inside when it got too scary.

I really enjoy the high speed aspect to my new camera!

I wasn’t really sure what I’d end up making when I picked up this ball of handspun.  I was pretty sure that I’d be making something that didn’t come in pairs, since I had no way of knowing how the stripes or colours would distribute themselves across the ball.  So…socks and mittens were out of the question.

I knew that there’d be stripes of some kind–with handspun from painted roving, you can’t really escape it!  I decided to try knitting Laila (ravelink), a baby sweater that I created for friend’s of mine when their little Laila was born.  It is a top-down, placket neck, raglan sleeve, seamless sweater, knit in the round.  I love it because it requires very little finishing, and shows off stripes really well.

I also wouldn’t have to worry about the front and back being two very different colours (some of this yarn is very orange, and some is very green).

Being swatchless has its advantages–I knit, and make things, and usually they turn out the right size for someone….the problems arise when I try to make baby clothes.   I don’t have access to many babies, so I’m at a loss as to their proportions.  To this end, I brought the sweater to my mom–a fairly conventional knitter who works to gauge, from patterns that have sizes on them.  She measured what I had against some of her 6 month sized sweaters.  This one seems about right for a 6 month old.  The neck opening is very stretchy, and so is the body.  I left the sleeves wide until the cuff, decreasing only 4 stitches over the entire arm.

I had wanted to do garter stitch at the sleeves and around the body just like I did at the neck.  Garter stitch is so much more brainless to knit than ribbing…but I found that the bottom edge of the sweater started to flip up when it was edged in garter stitch.  I ripped back, did a few rows of K2, P2, ribbing, and it seems to lay flat now.  I’m not sure if the flipping up is due to the garter stitch, or the twist in my spinning–it was not a balanced skein, but with me, it rarely is!

All that remains for this sweater is to pick out the most adorable little buttons.  I’m thinking that I might go for wooden buttons, or black buttons, or maybe three different coloured buttons….there are so many options….I’ll bring it along to the fabric store and see what speaks to me.

And now….I’ll have to wait for a knitter to have a baby sometime in the spring or summer….I don’t think a non-knitter would fully appreciate all the work that has gone into this creation!

Thanks to slimchicken (etsy) for dyeing the roving.  It’s lovely!

Today is labour day, the day that marks the transition from summer to fall, from vacation to school.  For as long as I can remember, my family has taken part in a rather strange labour day tradition.

We walk, all together, through campus, watching all the university students moving in, dyeing jackets purple and getting the craziest haircuts in the world.  Our destination is always the same.  We go to the ferry dock…

no cellphones? good luck!

…and go to Wolfe Island…

….and get ice cream….

tiger tail...my mom's favourite

….and eat it in the graveyard. (weird, eh?)

the church

the pretty flowers by the church

our ice cream spot

I brought my knitting (and my umbrella) with me.  I’m working on my pair of black alpaca mitts.

They are the softest, warmest mittens around.  I think I will wear them inside every other pair of mittens I’ve made for myself–this is Canada, we can get away with layering mittens!  Even my brother, who claims everything that I knit is itchy, said that these were “not that bad”. 

Yarn:  handspun (by me) from superfine alpaca roving purchased at Island Alpaca, Martha’s Vineyard (blogged here).

I’m not quite sure where family traditions come from, but come rain or shine, you’ll find us all in the Wolfe Island graveyard on labour day, just taking it easy and enjoying our ice cream.

How do YOU spend labour day?

While on vacation Evan and I spent a lovely day in Salem Massachusetts.  We saw the historic village, saw lots of thatched roofed houses, learned a lot of American history, and of course, I was drawn as if by gravity to the room with the spinning supplies! 

There were hand cards, drop spindles, knitting stuffed into baskets of hand spun yarn, and in the back corner of the room was the spinning wheel.  I asked the woman in period costume about all of these artifacts, and she had no idea how to use any of them.  It was such a shame….she could have been sitting and spinning all day long!

There weren’t any other tourists there, so I took a moment and showed the woman how to use the drop spindle.  I don’t know that she was all that interested, but she humoured me as I took pictures of her set up.

Here’s Evan in the stocks–he escaped soon afterward.

After wandering historic Salem, Evan and I went to Seed Stitch Fine Yarn.  This wasn’t exactly a random event.  I had planned the mission for a very special purpose which unfortunately I can’t quite reveal just yet.  Poor Evan got dragged along, but seemed not to mind so much.  He had never been to a yarn store before….except on Martha’s Vineyard where we saw the alpacas.

seed stitch fine yarn

What a friendly colourful place this is.  We were greeted right away, and given a bit of a tour.  There are so many yarns that I can’t seem to find in Kingston, but I’ve heard about them on Ravelry.  It’s nice to be able to feel what they are like, and see the range of colours.  There are comfy chairs and a work table, patterns to browse, and SO MUCH YARN!  If you are in the Salem area, go visit.  If you are nowhere close to Salem…go to their website!  (free shipping in the states if you spend more than $75)

"it's so fluffy I'm gonna die!"

Evan went looking around and….he found alpaca yarn!  What a guy….

display

I was very impressed at the creative display in the entry to the store.  Most of what you see is knit.  I like the little knit lobster, and the yarn in the mason jars.  It’s such a perfect combination of summer colours.

My purchase will be revealed later once my project is complete…

Across the street from the yarn store was a pretty awesome looking ice cream store, but we were already stuffed, so we kept walking around the small side streets, and we ran into something pretty cool.  We ran into Michael Allocca (etsy), who was making chain maille baby clothing!

The interlocking rings were aluminum and rubber, so the finished garment will be light and stretchy.  Such a neat idea.

We watched for a while, and it looked like a fairly easy process….link rings together….but I’m sure that if I tried it, I’d just end up with a tangled mess and lots of rings on the floor.  I’m impressed with his talent and creativity.  I think it looks a bit like knitting….what do you think?

Thank goodness for cold fronts!  The windmills have been turning like crazy, and the wind whipping through my windows, bringing with it the feeling of fall.  The change in weather has made such a difference in my day.

I woke up motivated to get things accomplished–starting with the last inch of ribbing on my vacation sock.  Drum roll please!  I hereby present the pair of completed socks (2 summer vacations in the making).  I’ve come to terms with the fact that this year’s vacation is done.  I think I might wear them on the first day of school, if it stays cold enough.

Sock 1: completed during my vacation in 2009 to Jordan and Egypt.
Sock 2: completed during my vacation in 2010 through Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.
Pattern: my regular toe up sock pattern
Yarn: Regia sock yarn

The rest of my day included lots of sorting and organizing and cleaning both the bathroom and kitchen, and then (after a little nap) I cooked up a big pot of vegetarian chili–a delicious way to clean out the fridge!

somehow food pictures don't ever look as good as the real thing

My Recipe:

• 1 very large onion (cut into small pieces)
• 1 green pepper (cut into small pieces)
• 2 carrots (cut into small pieces)
• 1 can diced tomato
• 1 can kidney beans (drained and rinsed)
• the end of my salsa and tomato juice
• textured vegetable protein (TVP) to soak up the liquid and look like meat.
• pepper, chili powder (to taste)

Look at this….my singles are spun and ready to ply!  This is one of my favourite parts about spinning, watching the miriad of colour combinations as the two variagated single strands twist around each other.  When knit, the resulting yarn has a more subtle striped effect than if it were chain plied to create a three ply yarn.  My goal for this yarn is to have the colours in each of the single strands match up, or almost match up.

I did divide the roving in half lengthwise before I started, and spun each half of the roving in the same order, with the wheel turning in the same direction.  It doesn’t really matter which direction this is, but remember to turn the wheel the other way when you are plying.

bobbins on the lazy kate

I’m not sure why it is called a lazy kate, but it certainly is a very useful tool to have.

• It keeps the bobbins from rolling all over my floor.
• It keeps the single strands from getting tangled up.
• It keeps a certain amount of tension on each of the strands.
• It lets me make 2 ply or 3 ply yarn.

To make two ply yarn, put an empty bobbin on your wheel, spin the wheel the opposite way to how you spun the singles.  Connect both single strands to the leader, and make sure the two singles intertwine to form a consistent two ply yarn.  It’s easy to get mesmorized by the colour combinations.  That’s why I like it so much.

colours are matching up nicely

Be aware that if both bobbins of singles are absolutely full, you’ll fill two bobbins with the two ply yarn.  I seem to be able to get 100g comfortably on one bobbin.

Here’s my completed skein, fresh from the niddy-noddy.  I love how the red, green, yellow and orange have combined.  It makes me think of harvest vegetable colours, perfect for fall.

gratuitous macro close up shot

I’m thinking this might be enough for a baby sweater.  You can make a baby sweater with 100g of yarn right?

I have a good feeling about this yarn, just looking at it makes me happy!

Note:  roving from slimchicken‘s etsy store.  Full before pictures are found here.