Dyeing and knitting

Weaving has been slow lately, the third towel is in progress and I can't wait for it to be done, because I really want to be weaving something else. For a change I had a go at dyeing some merino tops. I took 2 lots of 100g and dyed one in a semisolid purple and the other piece I splodged with several pinky purpley shades. The plan is to spin each one into fine singles and then ply them together.

I've made a start on one half and it's going quite well. Previously I finished spinning some alpaca fleece that I bought soon after I got my wheel. The drum carder really speeded up the preparation.

This is heavy DK weight 2 ply. The paler skein is some of the lighter parts of the fleece which I separated from the rest. I've put it in the handspun stash to mature. I have some more of this which I spun ages ago. I don't think there's enough for a sweater without adding some of another colour.

Here we have one and a bit Sunrise socks. This is such a simple stitch pattern and it really adds texture and changes the look of the yarn patterning nicely. The yarn is merino from YarnAddict Anni, and it is very nice to work with.

Unobservant weaver

I don't know how I missed it, but when I used the pick up stick on this towel, I managed to catch one thread wrongly. To be fair it isn't at all obvious on the right side. This warp has given me a lot of tension troubles. I think my warping technique will have to improve. I'm using crochet cotton with two ends in each slot and one in each hole. I warped front to back and when I wound on, there were tangles. Apart from that, even though I tied on at the front with the heddle raised, after a few inches of weaving the slot threads became loose compared with the hole threads. I cut this towel off and tied on again, and the same thing is happening with the second towel. Frankly, I'm puzzled. In an effort to keep the edges neat and reduce draw in, I tried a makeshift temple consisting of some kumihimo weights, nuts, and some hooks intended for hanging ribber weights when machine knitting.


I decided to just go for it and gently pulled out the offending warp thread and rewove it. It was only about 2 feet long and took 10 minutes. You'd never know.