Fiber Arts 9 | Through The Yarny Curtain

Sweet Summer Shawl

I finished this shawl yesterday, and I’m super excited because it’s the first time I’ve knit with my handspun!

Official Stats

Date Started: July 2, 2015
Date Finished: July 8, 2015
Pattern: Sweet Summer Shawl by Michelle Krause (Ravelry, website)
Yarn: 383 yards of my handspun Cotton Candy Corriedale, purchased from SassyBee Fibers at The Fiber Event 2014
Needles: US 6 / 4.0 mm
Finished Dimensions: 52″ x 13″ at longest point
Made for: Me! I’m not giving away my first handspun project 🙂
Ravelry Project Page

About This Project

I loved knitting this project. I’m happy to finally knit with my handspun. This yarn is a massive improvement over my prior handspun, but it still has some anomalies. The Sweet Summer Shawl pattern is forgiving of yarn anomalies, since it is mostly garter stitch. The shawl is knit from end to end not top down or bottom up. I was looking for a pattern knit in this manner to maximize the yarn I had. I managed to use all but 6.9 grams of the yarn.

The pattern suggests knitting 10 repeats of the increase section then 10 repeats of the decrease section. I started weighing my yarn after the 8th repeat and every repeat after that. I ended up with 11 repeats. I knew I didn’t have enough yarn to knit a 12th increase repeat plus a 12th decrease repeat. Now that I finished the pattern, I wish I’d knit one repeat without either increasing or decreasing. I had enough yarn to do so, and I think I would have been happier with an odd number of points. Since there’s not a central point in the pattern, it ends up slightly asymmetrical and I would have preferred symmetry. In the grand scheme of things, this is a minor quibble. It’s a fun, easy pattern to knit and I KNIT WITH MY HANDSPUN!!!

WIP Wednesday: July 8, 2015

I wasn’t sure if I would have anything for WIP Wednesday this week. I’ve been knitting a shawl, which I finished and blocked today. I do have an update on my Tour de Fleece spinning and I cast on a new project!

Tour de Fleece, Day 5

I really, really, really wanted to finish the cormo today. I didn’t quite make it. I have 0.09 ounces left to spin. That’s not a lot, but at the rate I’m spinning it’ll take at least 1/2 hour and it’s already 1 am. I’m throwing in the towel. I’ll finish it tomorrow.

Miranda Shawl

I cast on and knit the first 4 rows of a new shawl. This one is another test knit. Since it’s knit from the bottom up, I had to cast on 418 stitches!

Tour de Fleece 2015, Day 3

I didn’t spin yesterday as I was not feeling well. Walking around, even for a short time, made me feel nauseous and dizzy. I spent most of the day either napping or laying in the recliner and knitting. Sitting up to spin was totally out of the question. Chris took a vacation day today. I still wasn’t 100%, so we took it easy. A little hanging around, a few errands, a wee bit of housework. I had time to spin this evening while we watched American Ninja Warrior.

The picture on the left is my bobbin of cormo as of the end of Day 1. The picture on the right is my bobbin of cormo as of the end of Day 3. I spun 0.25 ounces of cormo today. I have just under 0.5 ounces left to spin. That’s just under 2 hours of spinning at the rate I’m going. I’m not sure if I’ll have time to finish all that spinning tomorrow, but certainly by Wednesday!

Tour de Fleece 2015, Day 1

Saturday, July 4, 2015 is the first day of the Tour de France. This means it is also the first day of the Tour de Fleece. The latter is a (yarn) spinning event that takes place each year on the same days as the famous bicycle race. The bicycle race is obviously a challenging event, full of world-class athletes. In that spirit, participants in the Tour de Fleece set their own challenging goals.

The Tour de France starts on July 4 and ends on July 26 this year. There’s two rest day during which the racers do not ride. This year, those dates are July 13 and July 21. There’s also one day that is particularly challenging. This year, that day is July 23. On that day, the racers will climb 5 mountains. The Tour de Fleece encourages participants to follow a similar schedule. Spinners don’t spin on the Tour de France rest days, and set a particularly difficult personal goal for the most challenging day of the Tour de France.

This is my first year participating in the Tour de Fleece. I only started spinning in late April 2014, six weeks before the Tour de Fleece started. I knew about the Tour de Fleece because I have friends who take part every year, but I didn’t feel ready to participate last year. I’m excited about this year!

Goals

My personal Tour de Fleece will be cut short this year. July 21 to 26 I will be in San Diego for The Knitting Guild Association Conference. I’m not bringing a spinning wheel with me, so won’t be able to spin while I am away. Since I’ll miss those dates, I’m not going to take any rest days for the rest of the tour. I’ll also miss the challenge day. I’m not worried about that though. I think it’s apparent to anyone reading this blog that I tend to challenge myself every day 🙂

My Tour de Fleece goal is to spin at least 30 minutes each day from July 4 through July 20. I hoped to finish the cormo before the Tour started, but I did not. I’ll work on the cormo until I finish it and then I’ll start on 3 Feet of Sheep in Colors of the Capital. I also plan to ride my bike at least 3 miles a day for each day from July 4 through July 20.

Today’s Progress

Since today is the first Saturday of the month, it was the regular meeting day of my local spinning group. I started the day by spinning with them.

Then I came home and spun some more. At the beginning of the day, my bobbin of cormo looked like this:

When I finished spinning for the day, my bobbin looked like this:

I spun for about 7 or 8 hours today, far exceeding my 30 minute goal! I also rode my bike for 3.12 miles this afternoon. Since it’s the summer in Florida, we had our usual afternoon rain showers. Chris and I managed to sneak a bike ride in between two separate storms. Despite the ominous hue of the clouds, we made it through the entire ride ahead of the second wave of storms!

I’m spinning the cormo very fine — it’ll definitely be lace weight 2-ply — which means it takes a long time to spin. In fact, it’s taking 2 hours to spin 0.5 ounces. I have about 0.75 ounces left, and I’m hoping to finish spinning it tomorrow so I can ply on Monday. I can’t wait to see just home much yardage I get. I think it’s going to be ridiculously high! On Tuesday, I’ll start on Three Feet of Sheep.

Grisou Scarf

This is the third test knit that I finished in June.

Official Stats

Date Started: June 17, 2015
Date Finished: June 24, 2015
Pattern: Grisou Scarf by Solène La Roux (website, Ravelry)
Yarn: 181 yards Gynx Yarns (website, Ravelry) Gynx Aran in Ocean
Needles: US 10.5 / 6.5 mm
Finished Dimensions: 13″ x 19″
Made for: test knit
Ravelry Project Page

About this Project

This is a quick little project. It’s called a scarf, but it’s intended to be worn like a neckerchief. The designer used Cascade Eco yarn when designing. I used yarn from my stash. I had a hard time matching gauge. I actually knit 3 swatches — something I never do, and probably wouldn’t have done if this wasn’t a test knit — and chose the largest of the three sizes as that was the closest to the designer’s gauge.

I ended up cannibalizing all three swatches to finish the scarf; I used every inch of the skein. Despite using all the yarn I had in the skein and pinning the scarf out to the designer’s intended dimensions of 14″ x 22″, my scarf was too short. When I unpinned it, it shrank down to 13″ by 19″. This proved to be too small for me to wear. In order to take pictures wearing the scarf, I pinned it with one of the shawl pins I got at the Hoosier Hills Fiber Festival. It is really tight on my neck! Since it doesn’t fit me well, I’ll gift it to someone else, but I’m not sure who yet.

It’s a well-written pattern. The cables look fancy, as they always do, but they are very straightforward cables. This pattern is a good choice for someone new to cables. I worked from the written instructions, as I always do for cables, but the pattern also includes charts.

As I mentioned in the Sand Tracks Scarf post, I almost always form cables without using a cable needle. I use a cable needle if the yarn is very slippery, e.g. the Cascade Pinwheel I used for the Palindrome Scarf, Palindrome Hat, and Irish Hiking Mittens last year. I might use a cable needle for something like the Sand Tracks Scarf, which had purl stitches in the cable, since it’s easier to drop those stitches.

Before the Grisou Scarf, I had formed 2-stitch, 3-stitch, and 4-stitch cables without a cable needle. The Grisou Scarf cables are 6-stitch cables. I decided to knit the Grisou Scarf without a cable needle, just to see if I could. For the first 3 pattern repeats, it did not go well. I dropped stitches on every cable row. I still don’t know how I was dropping them. I was carefully counting to make sure that I got them all back on the needles, only to find that I was missing a stitch. The scarf took many hours longer to knit than usual as a result of my stubborn refusal to use a cable needle and the resulting need to rip back to fix stitches dropped from the middle of cables. Finally, I decided to record a video demonstrating cables without a cable needle. Miraculously, I didn’t drop any stitches in the making of the video, or in any of the cable rows after that! I’m not sure what made the difference.

The video is 18 minutes long because I recorded two full rows of cabling, one with stitches held to the front and one with stitches held to the back. I planned to edit it down to just a couple of examples, but decided to leave the entire thing so that if you are watching the video while working cables, you don’t have to stop and rewind to watch the demonstration again. The video starts with stitches held to the back. After two examples, I added a note in the video telling you the time stamp where stitches held to the front starts, so you can fast forward if you are ready to do so! I hope you find the video helpful, and I’m happy to answer any questions you have.