Spinning fine

First of all, here is the progress on the first sock knitted with the kettle dyed yarn from my last post. There is diagonal patterning, and if I'd used different size needles or more or fewer stitches, it would be different. I'm using a 2.5mm needle and 72sts. It's growing on me.

I've been swatching and ripping a lot lately, indecision rules, it seems. Why do I have so much trouble finding a sweater pattern to knit? I'm not short of choices, but nothing is calling out to me. I suspect I'm going to be designing my own.

As a bit of a change, I dyed some merino/silk blend tops which I treated myself to a while ago.


I've made a start with the spinning, and it seems to want to be spun fine, so that's what I'm doing. I'm aiming for a 2 ply maybe for a lace scarf. This fibre is very soft with a lovely sheen from the silk and I managed not to felt it when I dyed it.

This wasn't the case for this red wool. I had to work quite hard to predraft this because it had become a bit matted, even though I had been quite careful not to agitate it or thermally shock it. Still, I ended up with almost 300m weighing 160g of 2 ply subtly shaded red yarn. Now to decide what to do with it.

Put the kettle on

I've been wanting to try kettle dyeing for a while, and I'm nearly ready to start some more socks, so I had a go at kettle dyeing an undyed skein of sock yarn. It was fun but unpredictable. The first thing was to soak the yarn in a weak washing up liquid solution, while mixing up the dyes. I used five different shades of acid dyes in the red, pink and yellow part of the spectrum. Having given the yarn a rinse I squeezed out most of the water and put it in the pot with some hot water, (just enough to cover it) I added some vinegar at this point, to help the dye to stay where it was put. Then it's a case of adding one colour at a time, waiting until it's been soaked up before adding the next.





Afterwards it's a case of applying heat, in this case I brought it up to nearly boiling point for about 15 minutes. The results are a bit more pink than I wanted, but I like the randomness of it.


I'm just wondering if I should overdye the pinkest bits, because I don't know if I'm brave enough (I've never been someone who wears very bright colours) to wear socks made from this. But then you can't even see the socks when they're worn because they're covered by shoes and trouser legs. Oh well, if I don't like them, I can always dye the finished socks something darker. I'm really looking forward to finding out what they'll be like.

Decision making

For the last few days, the only thing I've knitted has been a sock. This is 72 sts on a 2.5mm Addi lace needle in a 4+2 garter rib pattern, using the hand dyed sock yarn left over from my Mystic Meadows shawl.

I've been trying to find the perfect sweater project since I finished two sweaters nearly at the same time recently. I've been looking through books and magazines and Ravelry, and I think I've narrowed it down to two. This could change at any time though. The next thing is to swatch and see if I like the fabric in the yarns I'm thinking of using, one is handspun alpaca and the other is a wool rich DK.

Other than that, I've been playing with a peg loom I made. This is just the trial version of it, I've got a lovely piece of oak for the real thing, but I wanted to try out the spacing of the pegs first.

I started out with strips of the carded fibre that has a lot of noils and neps which makes a lovely squishy fabric, and then I lightly spun some of the same and tried that. I think I might try felting the result. It could be a good way to use up some of the not so good fibre I have. I fancy trying to make a rug at some point.

I managed to get a mirror shot of the Cabled Spiral sweater, the colour is a little yellowed, but it shows the fit pretty well. This is a very cosy garment, the Sirdar Salsa (merino and acrylic) is very soft and not at all itchy.

I'm still here

It's been a while I know, but progress has been made. My Rosemary sweater is finished, and so is the Cabled Spiral sweater. I'm happy with them both. I added some rows of single crochet rib to the neckline of the Rosemary sweater and overlapped them in the middle in an effort to stop the gaping. This worked well and it sits nicely. The colour is more accurate in the first picture, a dark olive green.

This picture is of the almost complete Cabled Spiral. Now it has a slightly longer neckband and is ready for blocking. The pattern is written for a polo neck, but I always find them too warm, so I've shortened it, hopefully without spoiling the finished look. Modifications I made: added more garter ridges on the hem to counteract the tendency to roll. Also, I did just a little waist shaping, just visible in the picture.

This is a blocking picture of the yoke, the colour is more accurate in the whole sweater picture.

Now I have to decide what to make next. I only have one sock going at the moment and I just discovered an error in it which I'm hoping I can fix without ripping out more than 2". It is knitted with the green hand dyed sock yarn left over from Mystic Meadows, and I'm using a garter rib pattern.

Spinning without a plan

It would help if I could decide what I wanted to use the resultant yarn for when I set out to do some spinning. Sometimes, though it is better to see how the fibre behaves spun thick or thin and take it from there. It's no fun battling with it, much better to go along with it. These English wool tops fall into this category being better suited to a fairly thick single.

This is 225m of 3 ply weighing 158g. There is also a small amount of 2 ply in the same colours and 135m of 2 ply in the heather colourway weighing 80g.

I still have the same amount to do again from the last dyeing session, the red and green. I'm not getting a very even result with this yarn, but hopefully it will look okay knitted up.

The cabled spiral sweater is progressing, I'm up to the yoke now - picture next time when there will be cables.

Morning Surf finished

It's done and blocked, measuring 55" x 7". I didn't stretch it very much, so it could have been bigger, but I'm pleased with it. It didn't even take me very long to knit, it's nice to have something finished quickly for a change.

The photo is of just one sleeve, but as of this evening, there is another one as well. Next I'll cast on for the body of the Cabled Spiral sweater by Norah Gaughan. I ripped the yarn (Sirdar Salsa) from the Weekend Sweater which had been hibernating for some time, and which I eventually realized was a bit small and I didn't really want a tight fitting sweater. The Cabled Spiral is mainly stocking stitch until the yoke when it gets interesting.

This is the current state of the crocheted Rosemary sweater, the longer sleeve needs a few more rounds, and then I need to make the other one match. I need to work out a way to make the neck opening less revealing because I don't want to have to wear a camisole underneath necessarily. I had made the opening higher than the pattern stated, but it wasn't quite enough even then.

I had a little dyeing session at the weekend, this is about 500g of english wool tops which I dyed in four different semi solid shades. So far, I've spun up about 2oz of the brown. At the moment , the plan is to make a 3 ply with it, maybe for a hat. Other ideas include spinning a thick singles yarn for a change.

The brown was dyed using leftover unexhausted dyes from previous sessions, after all, brown is usually the result of mixing all sorts of colours isn't it? There was separation of some of the constituent shades, giving this mixture shown clearly in the predrafted tops.

This is fun

I'm having fun with this scarf, it's the Morning Surf scarf modified a bit. I cast on 36 sts on to a 4.5mm needle and instead of 2,3,4,3,2 YOs, I'm doing 1,2,3,2,1. I don't normally get on too well knitting scarves, I get fed up before half way usually, but I'm past that point already and still going strong. Knitting with my own handspun is more special somehow and the colours are so vivid with a bit of candy striping shading one to the next.



This is more restful on the eyes, two skeins of two ply totalling 542m from the pastel batts along with a smaller skein of three ply. It isn't too bad considering the aggravation it gave me during the spinning of it. I have no idea what to use this for yet, hopefully something will occur to me soon. It would be good to use my handspun before it gets too old in the stash.