handspun

This is what happened to the BFL roving I bought during Yarn Harvest. I spun it up on my wheel and then plied it. It ranges from worsted to bulky weight, and I have three small skeins which total about 170 yards. I love the way it turned out. It's a soft red with bits of white and a shade verging on black in it. You'd think it'd look like candy-cane yarn, because of the red and the white, but it doesn't. Instead, it reminds me more of warmth. Not fire, because the red isn't orange enough for that, but when I look at it, I think of fire and heat.

It's very gratifying to be producing yarn that I feel confident about knitting with. I'm even decently happy with my plying job, although I think that's going to take more practice, too. Right now I don't have anything on the wheel. I have the last ball of some purple merino that needs plying on my Turkish spindle, and I have some of the Wensleydale roving on my top-whorl spindle. There's also some blue merino that I'll be starting on the wheel when I've finished those.

In the meantime, I have other things which need to be done. My cold's getting better. I woke up in the middle of the night last night and suddenly I could breathe. My voice is still a little rough, I'm still a bit congested, but I feel way better than I did yesterday.

a hat out of handspun

My spinning is getting better. I can knit with the result and produce something that looks pretty good. There's still a few bits that are too thick, or too thin, but the result is rather nice. I chose, for my first proper item knitted from my own handspun (the first one was a coaster which now lives underneath a vase on my coffee table), this hat from Knitty. It was designed for handspun. I started with this yarn:

Like the lazy knitter I am, I didn't swatch. The hat pattern knit up very quickly, and a couple hours after I started it, I took it to Knit Night, planning to finish the decreases. Everyone swiftly pointed out that it was too big. I hadn't had the greatest day and was grumpy about it. It took me another half of a row to admit that they were right. I frogged it, right then and there. I apologize to my friends for the grumpiness, and I apologize to the hat for the words I called it. I took out 4 repeats of the base pattern (2 repeats of the decrease pattern) and re-knit it on Wednesday. I magic-looped it for the decreases because I didn't want to go out and buy more DPNs. I don't think I'm going to take to magic loop for sock knitting, but I'll use it for hats, mitts, and probably sweater sleeves (haven't knit any sweater sleeves yet so this is guesswork). I found it very easy to do, and the top of the hat looks fine, so I believe I did it right. Here it is:

I like it very much. It's light-weight, it stays on my head nicely (although I did use clips to anchor it in place yesterday), and it looks pretty. I actually put it on this morning, absent-mindedly, after braiding my hair (my hair is waist-length when braided so it stays in braids most of the time), and was surprised a few hours later when I glanced into the mirror and saw it on my head. That's how light it is. And the colour is wonderful. The roving ranged from a deep, deep indigo blue to a very light, almost undyed blue. This has resulted in much of the yarn being dark blue, or a few light shades of dark blue, with a few sections that are reminiscent of denim.

I've started a new project with the rest of the yarn. They're mitts, with cabled ribbing. I'm almost to the thumb opening on the first one. They're on hold while I finish a pair of socks up for next week. Classes start next week, and I began these socks with wearing them to the first day in mind. When I finish them, you'll get the whole story. It's a long one.

magic and denial

Saying that I've gone over to the dark side would be rather inaccurate. It's more like I was lazy. And cheap. I learned to magic loop my knitting. (I guess the dark side would be crochet, but I do plan to learn that eventually and don't really think of it as dark. I just prefer the looking of knitting, mostly. There is that crocheted capelet in Lace Style that I have to make someday. Maybe buying socks at Walmart would be the dark side?)

See, recently, I had a felted teacosy go weird on me (hurray for scrap yarn of undetermined origin that felts at different rates). Then I re-knit that llama hat for my husband. It's all done, except for the lining and earflaps. And this one will fit. I have one sock out of a pair finished. I'm starting the second one today sometime, but I took a break off of it yesterday. Ideally, I'll finish it this weekend so I can wear them next week to the first day of school. Yesterday, after I wove in ends for the llama hat, I cast on for a lace hat made out of handspun. I've gone through all the Blue-Faced Leicester roving I had, washed it, and made it into balls that I can knit from. The hat was a fast knit, but it was on needles that I don't have DPNs for. My sets of needles are limited. I have a circular needle kit that goes from 3.5-10mm (no 7 or 7.5 needles, though, because it's an American kit), and I have DPNs to go with the 3.5, 4, 6, and non-existent 7.5 needles. I was working on 5.5 ones for this hat. I didn't want to go buy more DPNs that evening. I had knitting group, the LYS was closed by that time, and Michael's usually never has the size I want. I settled for looking up a video on Magic Loop, figuring I should learn it anyway. Surprisingly, it works pretty well. And it makes sense. I was confused by it earlier because the only instructions I'd seen were in a book.

Sadly, I got to the decreases on the hat at knitting group, where everyone immediately pointed out that the hat was too big. I was grumpy about this (to my friends, I apologize, you were right, I just hadn't had a great day and having to frog a hat just made me more grumpy, but I shouldn't have been so upset about it). I didn't want to admit I'd messed up. I didn't swatch, because I don't like swatching. I didn't want to frog it and re-knit it, even if it had only been about hour to an hour and a half of knitting. I started the next row, realized that they were right (objectivity is a useful talent), and frogged the poor thing. It was so pretty. I have to take out 3 repeats (at least) to compensate, so it'll be an even faster knit the second time around, and it'll use less yarn.

Since I had half of the pattern with me (the chart for the decreases, but nothing else), and my other option was picking up stitches for the llama hat's lining (important but tedious), I started something new. Mitts. There's enough handspun for the mitts and the hat, and it was a chance to try out Magic Loop. I cast on, did some ribbing, and drew up a quick chart for some simple ribbing with cables. One more repeat and I should be able to make the thumb hole. Magic Looping is pretty easy. I don't know why I was so freaked by it initially. I don't think it'll replace DPNs for me when I knit socks (don't have any circulars that small anyway), but it's going to be useful for hats and mitts. Possibly sweater sleeves as well, when I get to knitting sweaters.