Pleased, Very Pleased

Ah, I love it when something creative comes together totally the way it was imagined. This spinning project was one of those rare occasions when that magic really happened.

This makes me pleased, very pleased.

Above is a sample I just knit up this morning so I can see how the yarn I chain plied last evening in class will look when it is knit. And I love it! But I have gotten ahead of myself.

In the beginning

This started out as a roving dyed by BJS Fiber Creations from Bellingham, Washington in the States. The roving is made up of 85% polwarth (a breed of sheep) and 15% tussah silk, and although it lacks the fuzzy, fluffy feel of merino wool, the polwarth is sturdy, non-scratchy, has a long staple and is affordable (all the qualities a beginning spinner needs). As you can see above, the roving was dyed with long stretches of colour. Those stretches show up on the bobbin as blocks of colour. There are 4 ounces or 113 grams of this wool/silk blend to spin. It is one-half done in the photo.

After approximately four hours of spinning the entire roving was spun. As you can see from the photo above the spinning continues to be rather consistent. Yeah! My concern was in plying or putting more than one strand of yarn together with another. If two strands are used one ends up with two ply yarn. Two ply yarn is rather flat and can be unattractive when used in certain knitting applications like ribbing. Three ply yarn is more rounded and creates a yarn more like commercial yarns.

I wanted to three-ply my polwarth yet maintain those long lengths of colour. If one used the typical plying method of merely spinning yarns together the odds of getting a barber pole effect are high.

Photo credit to Saffron Knits

See in the yarn photo above, how one colour wraps around another and it creates that moving striped look? That is not what I wanted to create.

A method called chain plying keeps like colours together. In essence one is holding back the twist with one hand and the other is creating a stitch like a single crochet or chain stitch. Not only is it tricky to describe it is even trickier to do. (If you'd like a video to see how it is done click here and go to 3:15 to see the chain ply process in action.) I didn't quite understand chain plying my first time taking a spinning class, and even Felecia Lo's Craftsy class didn't clear up my confusion. But last night, last night I really understood and chain plied one of my two bobbins.

My chain plied yarn!

Barbara, the instructor, looked at what I had done and said it was very good. And me, well I was completely flabbergasted that finally this technique made sense. Perhaps it was the struggling from the past that helped with last night's success. The photo below shows the difference between a bobbin that is plied and one that isn't. Also note the loveliness of the yarn hanging out on the right.

It won't take long to ply the second bobbin and within a day or so, after it dries (because once plied the yarn takes a swim to set said ply) I will be able to make up a seed or moss stitch scarf using this yarn, like the sample above. My test knit gave me information about the proper needle size and number of stitches to cast on. Yup, I am so very pleased because I can finally call what I am making yarn.

So hey Susan, I am now able to spin up something for you. Time the two of us go roving shopping together!

Anatomy of a Sock

I've been knitting socks for a relatively short time. One of the disconcerting things for me as I started following patterns for socks is the pattern designer assumes the knitter (in this case that would be me) knows all the parts of a sock. So I thought I'd devote a post to improve my own knowledge about the anatomy of a sock and maybe some of you will learn something about the humble yet necessary sock as well. Here's the names of the parts of the foot as I know them. #49 ankle, #50 heel, #51, instep, #52 ball, #53 big toe, #54 toe, #55 little toe, #56 toenail. There are some parts more important for this discussion; first the heel of a foot is generally used to refer to the entire C-shape from the ankle to the instep. Speaking of the instep, it refers to that curve near the bottom of the foot. And what seems to be missing in the design above is the sole which generally refers to the bottom of the foot in total or plantar aspect in more technical terms. (BTW

Ode to the Cat

It has been six months since Mike, the cat's, passing. I think of him every day and miss him especially when Paul is away. Mike was a being in the house with me and we were close. Grieving his death has been muddled with my Dad's passing and sometimes I feel guilty about that happening. As time passes the ache becomes less hurtful for both and I am starting to get mostly good memories in its place. Recently I helped celebrate Pablo Neruda's birthday with Jami, my poet and overall very creative friend. Guests were asked to select one poem written by Neruda to read to the small group who gathered for the celebration. I picked this one: Ode To The Cat -- Pablo Neruda There was something wrong with the animals: their tails were too long, and they had unfortunate heads. Then they started coming together, little by little fitting together to make a landscape, developing birthmarks, grace, flight. But the cat, only the cat turned out finished, and

Knitting-Related Guinness World Records

I had to share some of the Guinness World Records connected with knitting. It is amazing to me the type of skill, stamina and unique characteristics these record holders have in common. How about trying to knit with these SPNs?? Ingrid Wagner and her large needles and knitted swatch The largest knitting needles measured 3.5 m (11 ft 5.8 in) long and had a diameter of 8 cm (3.15 in). Ingrid Wagner, a rug and art creation artist, from the UK used the needles to knit a tension square of ten stitches by ten rows at the Metro Radio Arena, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, on March, 10 2008. (And I complained about getting certain SPNs stuck in my clothes.) See how this swatch was done with merely 5 people managing the needles. And what about the yarn? It is truly ex-bulky. It looks like they're knitting in a warehouse, but with a wingspan of almost 24 feet or 7 m, you'd need all that space. Or how about the longest piece of finger knitting that measured 4,321.4 m

Flagel Knitting Files

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