Spinning behind the scenes work

I've been trying to get a handle on my spinning, not that I have been really doing much spinning. Just that two moves and reorganization has allowed me to take a few deep looks into my stash. When we moved from Oregon I carefully vacuum packed and packed it into totes, now it it fluffed and being admired. 

Burt is as helpful as ever. I pulled out some handspun yarn and tried to do some calculations to see what I could make. That turned into going a different direction and finally some mittens.

You've seen them they are fabulous, if I do say so myself.

I've even filled a bobbin or two.

But most importantly I've pulled out my hand spun to weigh and catalog. When you start a new hobby it is so easy to just throw yourself in with wild abandon. It is part of the fun of learning. Another part of learning is actually keeping notes and labeling your newly spun yarn. Guess which part I skipped right over.

Sigh, how did I spin so much without keeping track of it? The dyed ones are easier to identify, but as to how they were spun... nope not a clue. Good thing I had fun spinning them, 

Luckily I do like showing off what I have bought, right here on this very blog. I spent a morning weighing and matching subtle natural colors to photos of my stash. I think I matched up half of them at least. With some I even know how I spun them.

I am very curious how four ounces of roving decreased to 1.7 in one yarn making. Either there is another mystery ball out there or I misidentified the wool. That is an unbelievable amount of fiber to fluff off.

I now have a dedicated notebook for spinning and three projects were recorded but alas I must admit I am a horrible spinner note taker. I even looked back through my knitting journals. Not a word about spinning. But then why would there be when I run 6 months behind on those during the good times.

Well the lesson was learned now I just need to keep on applying it.

Happy Spinning?

Tea Socks or why Santa always checks the list twice

I found the perfect combination of yarn colorway name and pattern name. I found the yarn on one of my Rose City Yarn crawls. I bought Barnyard Knits fingering yarn in the Lemongrass Tea colorway. Can I just say my color appreciation has vastly improved as a knitter. I once hated orange and yellow but now have learned to appreciate many different colors that I would have turned my nose up at before. (I will also like to note I changed the way I say things. I don't call things ugly anymore, they are simply not my taste. No use calling something ugly when we all know someone out there loves it, just not me.) I think this color is one of my newly acquired tastes. The flecks of dark brown just stole my heart and I will admit to being influenced by colorway names too. Lemongrass tea, doesn't it just make you feel the warm sun as you sit in your lush peaceful garden sipping a cup of relaxing tea? Ahh I'm just going to sit here for a minute more.

And on with our story, then one day I found a pattern called My Cup of Tea Socks by Robin Lynn. The sample socks were a delicate tan color that the designer had dyed with a variety of tea bags. Since it made a fragrant yarn it clicked in my head I had the perfect yarn.

 I cast on and started knitting and taking pictures to share with some friends, 

I managed to get one of the great yarn color complexity. 

Well you can tell where I do a lot of my knitting and texting with friends can't you?

My sock grew and I was still in love. I finished the first one and cast on the second. I even took it to a local knitting meet up and knit on it. 

Then my brain started twitching. I am an oddity in the sock knitting world. I work my socks on many more stitches than most knitters, at least if you look at a lot of sock patterns. I think I grew up with so many ill fitting socks that I cannot tolerate snug socks. But hey that is the best thing about knitting I get to make socks the way I like. 

But recently I've noticed my socks have been a bit too loose. And now it is bothering me too. So for this sock I decided to decrease my gusset a bit more to make it a tiny bit more snug.

I was such a good knitter that I even made note of it. I know I was shocked too.

I was only a repeat or two away from starting the heel when my brain picked a fight with me. It kept popping up and saying Hey didn't we decrease the first sock?

So I checked my notes and admitted we did. I sucked it up this morning and ripped back to the cuff after I took the sad picture above. Well at least I remembered before I knit the whole thing and it didn't match the first one. 

But my brain would not let me knit happily on. Hey this feels funny I don't remember doing the decreases this way. Why don't I remember this?

So I checked my notes again. I had clearly noted the decreased stitch amount for the foot only! Dag Nab It! I have ripped back for nothing. At least my brain only let me knit 4 rounds before yelling at me to check it again.

But now for something I have been able to do right. I reset my Rhinebeck room to have a nice little knitting corner with a conveniently placed bowl of Mellie. She is graciously consented to be my "At Elbow" assistant. 

Hopefully no more mistakes will be made with my February socks and I will be able to get back on our non-existent knitting schedule. So my friends knit on with authority and never be afraid to check your notes twice, or three times, however many times it takes to do the job right. I'm starting a 12 hour waiting period on all ripping back. 

Handspun Mittens second project of the year

Last year I joined a spinning and weaving guild. So much was going on in our lives and you all know I'm a total introvert. I only ended up attending a few meetings via zoom. One of those was a bi-monthly spinning group. The format is to go around one by one and talk about what you've been spinning. Luckily I had set up my wheel and actually had spun some fiber. But oh man I could feel the pressure coming to talk and it scared me. I thought of jumping off before they could get to me but I hung in there and told them my dirty secret. I have not knit with any of my handspun yarn. Well, except for some ropey spindle spun mini sweater ornaments.

After that I bucked up and pulled out some lovely hand spun yarn. Actually I went down a rabbit hole of my spun yarn but that is a story for a different day. 

I looked around my knitting room and decided on a skein of handspun fresh off the plying bobbin was my next project. I'm not even sure if the yarn was even washed. Oh well it is experiment time. I used Ann Budd's Knitter's book of patterns to cast on. Then because I had no idea of what gauge to knit at I cast on a bunch more times. It was experimentation time I tell you. I finally decided a gauge of 4 stitches per inch would work. I knit a nice long cuff and almost all of the mitten.

Then because it was still experimentation time I weighed it and the left over skein. Partial mitten was 59 g and remaining skein was 57 g. Well this is not going to work. I thought of just using some other hand spun for the thumbs but decided the fun of knitting another mitten the right way was a better plan. 

I ripped back to only a 2 inch cuff, most likely the recommended cuff length to begin with, and knit another mitten and weighed it. 52 g, hey these mittens might even get to have thumbs!

Knitting with bigger yarn and needles than sock weight is fun too. I think each mitten took about a day to knit. Easier to rip back and start over when it is just a day's experiment that you lose. What else does a knitter/spinner do with a weekend?

Will you look at that? I make stripy yarn sometimes. So much fun to play around and have fun and warm mittens at the end.

Once I finished these I cast on a pair for hubby out of some Alpaca Sox I dug out of the stash. Those are not going as quick! 

I can finally say I made something I can use, from fluff to mitten. Just wait till I tell you about the rest of the handspun stash and my vow to do better. Just like my knitting journal vow to do better...

Happy knitting!