Through The Yarny Curtain

Tour de Fleece, Stage 7

Today I continued plying the cormo. While plying is faster than spinning, it still takes a long time when your singles are like thread! I finished the first bobbin and barely started on the second bobbin.

I haven’t mentioned this before, but I a towel under my spinning wheel to protect our hardwood floors. The small movements the wheel makes while I’m spinning scratched my floor the first couple times I used the wheel. I usually pick the towel up at night to keep it away from the cats. I forgot to pick up the towel last night and someone puked on it during the night, so I put a different towel on the floor today. Fortunately, the guilty feline missed my wheel and my bobbins of spun yarn. I would not have been happy to find dried up cat puke ruining my beautiful singles!

Tour de Fleece 2015, Stage 6

Since I only had 0.06 ounces of cormo left to spin, I finally finished it. Then I started plying. And plying. And plying some more. Plying is a lot quicker than spinning, but with yarn this fine it takes a long time. I’m about halfway through the first bobbin of finished yarn, or one-quarter the way through the singles.

My husband walked through the room just as I was getting set up to ply. He looked at the spinning and said, “Do you still call this yarn? It looks like thread to me!”

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!