Still spinning

I've filled another spindle with wool. While this one started out a bit thicker than my usual spinning, I quickly reverted to my normal spinning style. 

I spun up a quarter pound of Wensleydale Romney cross wool, pictured on the right below. It was my first time working with nice fluffy pin drafted fiber. 

Boy could I tell a difference with the staple length too. It took me just a bit of adjustment then I spun through it quite quickly, in about a week. The fluffiness of the fibers helped. I did not have to do much fiber preparation, just spin some yarn.

Once it was spun I let it sit for a week on the spindle to relax into itself. I wound it off on my handy dandy ball winder, and then held the two ends together and once again wound onto the ball winder. I have found this makes plying so much easier for me. I just need to pay attention to making sure the two plies align correctly.

When I plied from the outside and inside of a ball I was having some difficulty with one ply pulling a longer length and twisting back on itself. When I wind them together first the lengths are matched reasonably well.

Now my little ready to ply ball is resting and waiting for me to finish the job so I can call it yarn. I am looking around for an additional spinning tool, a wraps per inch tool. Yarn weight classification is based on how many wraps around a set size tool you can make. More wraps per inch means a finer yarn weight.

Currently I have not knit with any of my hand spun. Gus has hidden my two earliest efforts. (He tells me it was not him, but I don't believe him since he is the only other one in this house that likes to carry around yarn almost as much as me.) Anyway, part of the reason I've not knit any of my yarn is that I can not judge yarn weight very accurately. I can tell the difference between lace weight and bulky sure, but hand me fingering and sport weight without the yardage and needle recommendations attached and I am lost. Odds are that I can make socks out of both.

I also have the handicap of being primarily a sock knitter. I assume all yarn should be knit at a gauge that could stop a bullet. What do you mean a sweater should drape? Don't all your sweaters stand up in the closet like mine?

No really I am not that bad but I do tend to knit rather tight and lean toward preferring a tighter gauge than most. Knitting, it is all in the style, right?

It's what's on the inside that matters

I show you a lot of sock pictures. We all know how much I like showing off my socks but you know what we don't talk about? The inside of the sock once it has been...broken in.

So I give you inside the sock.

It is not all pretty stitches once they see some work.

Sometimes I put them on and have to take them right back off, because they develop lumps. Lumps of fiber that sit right under the ball of my foot. It may be better than walking on shards of glass; it is still a trial for my foot.  Who knew my foot could not handle wool?

Inside

Outside

It gets fuzzy in there doesn't it? Good thing I like fuzzy things. Most of the time I just let the inside felt. I figure it just makes it more cozy. Cozy is good, but I tell you it is just a tad embarrassing to have bits of brightly colored wool stuck between your toes at the doctor's office. 

Not too embarrassing that I don't wear my woolies. I am not one to let someone else's opinion get between me and warm feet. However I do worry how long the vacuum is going to last when it is tasked with sucking up all those toe bits of wool. I hope it lasts a long time because I don't want to reduce the yarn budget by new vacuum cost.

Lucky Socks

It is official Adriene sent me lucky sock yarn! I think they increased in luck once I knit them too.

As you will recall, Adriene and I swapped some knitterlyness last year. I was knitting the socks when we went to our first trivia night at the Legion. We won first place and a dollar on a lotto ticket.

Last night I thought "Adriene" might want to go for trivia again. We all know Adriene would rock trivia night.

We came in second by one point, but we won $19 in lotto tickets. Hmm I wonder what I could buy with it? D looks like he could use some fro-yo, don't ya think?

Adriene you want any special topping or a certain flavor in your honor? I am leaning towards salted caramel myself.

I'm thinking...

I would say that I cast on a new sock once I finished the Porcupine Socks, but I didn't. This sock was already on the needles because sometimes I just cast things on with abandon. 

I love it but I don't. I like stripey socks, especially ones that don't stripe in a perfectly straight line. You know something like these.

But if you will consider that first photo again you can see how the striping changes as you get closer to the needles. Instead of striping it is now pooling or flashing, as we knitters call it. Most of the time I like yarns that do that too, but in the same sock? Yikes.

So what to do? You know, other than cast on another sock and ignore the problem by knitting on something else. Because I'm already doing that don't ya know? (D will be getting another nice dark grey toe up plain sock sometime soon.)

I am mulling over ripping back to the cuff and finding a nice pattern that will mesh well with the colors. Oh maybe Mockery Socks would play nice with the patterning, yet keep it in line?

I'm still working on it, but don't worry about me I have plenty of other things here to keep my hands busy in the mean time.

Porcupine Socks

My porcupine socks are off my back and on my feet. As you know I knit a lot of socks, maybe not as many as some people but my feet are always tucked into something woolly. I love looking at sock patterns but don't seem to knit many of them. I decided this was the year to alter that trend.

Achilles HeAl by Lucia Light with my little 2x4 feet modifications. 

This pattern caught my attention because it is knit in a different way. The heel can be replaced without needing to reknit the whole foot again. I thought this could be a valuable technique to add to my skillset. Plus it makes a cool sole.

I did have trouble figuring out how the heel was made. I don't think it is the best method for me, but it is nice to know it can be done.

Plus it broke up the color pooling so nice. Pretty are they not?

Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts, Socks that Rock, medium weight in the Drusilla colorway.

Spring Spinning

It seems this spring has not only attacked me with terrible allergies but also the spinning bug. When the temperature warms up I throw off my blankets and cuddling cats. This of course frees up the full range of my arms for spinning duty.

I clearly still have no idea what I am doing but I am having fun doing it. This yarn is still quite twisted. Is it possible that it is over spun and over plied? Or did it just not spend three months on my niddy noddy? Here is hoping a good bath will relax all the over crimp out of it.

Well it is less crimped but still much shorter than the older fiber on the left. I guess it is time to research what thwacking is and what it does for yarn. Plus it is fun to say, thwack.

See all that crimp? Do you think I am over compensating for my straight as a board hair with this yarn? Yeah do too.

And on the other side of the color rift, we have yowsa that is some bright yarn!

I wanted to wash my first and second spinning attempts, but I think Gus may have claimed them as his personal stash since I can not find them. Probably how he spends his day, gently patting the yarn and giggling his maniacal kitty laugh.

Road trip planning

I am the planner of the family. When vacation time comes around, I check out books from the library and visit websites. If there is something to see along the way I usually know about it. I am the one that makes a list of places we could stay, things we could do and where we could eat. All of that is me.

I am not a dictator though, I make all my lists and then we sit down and talk about the options. I've learned that every minute does not need to be planned but I like to wake up with a day full of options. Usually it is a joint decision with me narrowing down the options.

This time though we talked early on trying to decide where our destination would be. We spoke of a few places but D kept telling me he wanted to be near the water this time. Finally we settled on Portsmouth New Hampshire. D remembered this wee bit of New Hampshire's coast from when we drove up to Maine quite a few years ago.

So I started my planning but this year D took the lead with our lodgings. He booked us in to a lovely B&B. I think he likes B&Bs almost as much as I do now. I think it may be the allure of drinking a good cup of tea in a nice garden, or it may be the waffles he received in Portland OR.

D's deciding factor in choosing the B&B was that the owner/operator is a knitter. He is so used to living with me that he just could not stay under the roof of a non-knitter. No I don't really think that but it pleased me to have him think of this for me. A little knitter talk over the breakfast table really helps me get into vacation mode.

He has found a few lighthouses, a submarine and beaches to tour around. And speaking of tours how about a brewery tour?

Yep this trip is coming together nicely. Did I tell you the best part? D has even agreed to a detour on the way out. I get to stop at Webs Yarn store on the way out. You know they bill themselves as America's yarn store. I may be hitting their website a bit lately, you know just to see what they have. The sock yarn selection seems adequate, hee hee. I may even find the yarn for my Color Affection shawl there, and probably twelve other projects too.