Slow Knitting

The Printed Silk cardi has grown a bit. I'm now on the twisted stitch pattern for the yoke and the knitting is slower. The yarn is very splitty, so I'm having to be very careful working the twists.


It's been a long time since I did any spinning, but I haven't quite forgotten how. I finished the purple merino and the pinky merino singles which I dyed last July and have plied them. I have about 180g which is now drying. I'll measure the skeins and calculate the yardage tomorrow.


Weaving has also been happening. I'm about two thirds through the second towel now which has a red weft.

What looks like an error half way up this picture is due to me not beating hard enough at that spot. I didn't even notice it in the actual weaving at the time, but it shows up in the photo.

Snow Queen

It's finished and blocked. The finished size is 50" across. To summarize, I used the I-cord circular start with 3.25mm needles, changing to 3.5mm for most of it, and 3.75mm for the last 25 rounds. The clear beads are 8/0 Crystal AB Matsuno seed beads, and the blue ones are Frosted light blue AB Matsuno seed beads. I used 97g of the beads in total and 140g of the white 2 ply botany wool (no idea of the yardage).

Weaving steadily, knitting and crochet too

I've been making progress on various projects lately, but haven't managed to get an opportunity to blog about them, not helped by the lack of photos. My Snow Queen shawl is getting larger, and I'm on the last chart now. It's just a big blob, so no picture yet. Other knitting news involves a Printed Silk cardigan started. I've only managed to do a few inches on the back so far, but it's looking good. I'm using Sirdar Just Soya DK in the Spinach colourway. I swatched with 3.75mm needles and got gauge, but when I washed the swatch it grew a lot. So I cast on with 3.5mm needles for a smaller size and I'm hoping for the best.

I also finished a crocheted sweater which needs a photo shoot yet. Because I like to crochet, I started another garment, this time a top down raglan cardigan. The yarn is Sirdar Countrystyle in a brightish green, and I'm using a 4.5mm hook. I'm designing it as I go along.

I warped the loom with some 4 ply acrylic/wool yarn for a seat cover and cushion cover. I threaded it for an 8 shaft straight draw, and sampled a few twill patterns before settling on one for the seat cover, and a different one for the cushion. The colour scheme is not my favourite, but it needs to emulate the existing one which is brown. The sett is 15 epi.

Here is my very first broken warp thread, well actually it frayed rather than broke, but I fixed it okay. Also visible is my tally counter. I press once per pick and can then find out where I am if my concentration is broken. My sliding beater is working really well, it's the best improvement we could have made to this loom. This fabric is off the loom now and washed and steamed, ready for sewing.

I wanted to weave some more tea towels since I've been using the rigid heddle ones all the time, and it's lovely to be handling your handiwork on a daily basis. So when I discovered this project article on the Interweave site I just had to follow it up. I'd heard about network drafting and wondered what it is and the article removes some of the mystery. I've been buying some cones of 3/14 combed cotton in various colours and it should work well for towels so I put on a 4m warp back to front at 25 epi using my new raddle, and have started weaving the first towel after trying a few different weft colours. My temple finally arrived after a 3 month wait so I'm using a temple for the first time and it really helps with keeping the selvedge threads straight for beating. I decided on navy weft for the first towel, and I'm about half way through it now.