Spin Spun, Almost Done

A non-spinner would probably be unimpressed with this photo. A little pile of natural brown yarn? Big deal.

Well, yeah. It's about 420 grams of fingering weight 3-ply yarn that I've been spinning on and off over the course of nearly 2 years. Is that nuts or what? Of course, I've done a lot of other stuff along the way.



Right now I'm trying to decide if I should keep going on this and get a whole sweater's worth done, or if I should use it with a natural white fingering weight factory-spun yarn and make a nice Faroese-style stranded design.


Here's the obligatory coin shot. Hmm. I'm leaning toward a nice two-color stranded design because it would be fun to spin some of the other fibers that have been building up in the last two years.

In Other News
I've resigned from my position at Knitcircus. It's been an incredible learning experience for me and lots of fun along the way. My family is hoping to move to a bigger house this spring/summer (the grant-gods, willing) and we have a lot of work to do to make that happen; like, 2 full time job's worth of cleaning, sorting, purging, and packing for at least several months. And I think my kids need some more of my attention than they've been getting. The younger son has had behavioral issues at school and at home that I can't continue to gloss over. I'll still be helping out with Knitcircus here and there: maybe doing some of the photos, definitely designing an occasional pattern. Stay tuned!

Dr Science Zipped Jacket

While knitting this cardigan er, jacket, I learned that if you call it a "cardigan" men won't wear it. Now, I think, historically, there's been nothing particularly feminine about the word "cardigan." I even think it sounds kind of masculine. I think that's why people use the cutesie term "cardi" for ones that women wear: to make it sound more feminine.

So, yeah. This garment opens in the front and has a zipper to keep it closed, so go with jacket or cardigan as you prefer.



The pattern is now available through Knitcircus #9, . Click on the little flipping-page magazine thing to see the nifty online virtual paper version! The patterns are available for purchased download in a complete set for $7.50. Current subscribers will be getting a notification about where to download the pdf.



Specs on the Dr. Science Zipped Jacket
Written for sizes S-2X; Finished chest measurements 36 [40, 44, 48, 52]"
Suggested yarn: Patons Classic Merino Wool. Lots of great and easy substitutions available, too.

Still More Weaving

If I keep this up, I might start losing the knitting fan base, eh?

This is a simple houndstooth check scarf for Mr. SABLE


And a closer view:


I used black Jaggerspun Maine Line, a 2/8 fingering weight wool yarn, and Knit Picks Palette in a medium grey. I used a 10 dent heddle on my rigid heddle loom, which seemed a bit too open in the weaving. I fulled the scarf slightly in the washing machine, which gave it a nice body.

Finished size: about 7" wide by about 7' long. This was a fun and super easy weaving project. It took less than 24 hours from warping the loom to finished.

New Years Eve Weaving

Yesterday afternoon I warped the loom for this project and was done weaving and was fulling it a bit when 2010 came through Madison. A new scarf for the new year.

Weaving Geek Details
66 ends
7.5 dpi reed on Ashford Rigid Heddle Loom

Warp
Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport, colors 111 Plumberry and N80S Mountain Purple, less than 50 grams each
Pomfret Mark II Sport yarn (ancient!) Brick Heather, about 15 yards

Weft
Pomfret Mark II Sport Yarn (also ancient) Grape: just over 1 50 gram ball

I really love this scarf!

Road Trip to Hartford WI

Today I met up with my knitting buddies, Kathy and Sue, plus meeting two new folks, Patrice from Beaver Dam and Lois from Waukesha. We met for lunch and knitting at the Perk Place in Hartford WI. This delightful coffee shop is next door to The Main Street Yarn Shop and two doors up from a big St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Shop. It doesn't get much better than that, if you ask me!

Here's the yarn shop:



It's a wonderful shop with comfy places to sit, a nice selection of yarns, and a very friendly owner. If you find yourself up that way, plan to stop in.

Winding Down 2009

We are about half way through the winter break from school. Having cleared Christmas, we have cleared the worst of it with our kids and their seasonal craziness. Mr. SABLE is taking this week off from work, so we have a lot of unstructured time, which can be both good and bad.

Earlier this year, I accepted a meme on Facebook: agree to make a handmade something for someone, and they agree to reciprocate, sometime before the end of 2009. I'm getting down to the wire on 2009, eh? I keep getting ideas of things that would be fun to make, but then, talking myself out of actually doing them, thinking the recipients won't like the result. Finally, I just had a moment of inspiration and made these handwarmers for my friend Leslie:


They are from Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport, color Monument Green. US #3 double point needles. It's a very simple twisted stitch. The pair weighs 28 grams, so you could definitely get a pair out of one ball. I was working off a cone that Heather at The Sow's Ear bought for me on deep deep deep discount. It's nice to have friends who manage yarn stores. Although the finished mitts are extremely similar to an existing pattern, I'm probably going to write mine up and make it available free. I use a different number of stitches and have a different thumb treatment from the existing pattern.

In Weaving News
Owen wanted to make a project on my loom after he saw my first scarf. (See previous post.) I had a bad feeling that he wouldn't really have the follow-through for something so contemplative and repetitive. It's not that I want him to fail, but I've seen him start a lot of fiber-related projects over the years and never complete any.

We warped the loom with some sport weight acrylic yarn I had acquired along with a larger batch of cones of wool yarns. Sure enough, Owen lost interest after about 2". I took over so that I could free up my loom for my projects and get some practice, too. By the end, my selvedges were much more even.

Here's Mr SABLE modeling the finished scarf:

Even though it's baby-melting acrylic, I still think it turned out pretty nice.

I hope you all are enjoying the last few days of 2009. We have abundant sunshine today, but cold. It's nice to look out at the fresh snow sparkling on the ground from a warm vantage point indoors.

Now With Weaving!

It's not like I needed One More Thing To Do and it's not like I needed One More Piece of Equipment, but I finally caved in to a little urge that's been lying dormant for 30 years, but giving me occasional little nudges. I used my birthday money and bought an Ashford 32" Rigid Heddle Loom and stand. Yesterday I warped it for a simple scarf and today I took my first piece off the loom.

It's not anywhere close to perfect, but not nearly as flawed as I feared it might be while I was working on it.



The warp yarn is Knit One, Crochet Too Parfait, in a kind of dusky lavender color. The weft is Brown Sheep Lambs Pride Worsted in a rich dark purple. These pics show it before I washed it, and the flash gave the yarn a sheen it doesn't really have. It's soaking right now, and with a little luck, I'll be able to get some natural light pics soon.

In other news, last week, while Mr. SABLE was in San Diego, we had about 15" of snow. It was a record-breaking snow event for Madison. The kids had Wednesday off from school and everything ground to a halt. Mr. SABLE had parked his car in the surface lot at the airport, thereby saving his company a whopping $2 a day over the cost of the garage, so Wednesday night after we were plowed out, we went out to the airport, found his car, dug it out, and then stayed to meet his plane. Remarkably, it was only about 40 minutes late.

In knitting news, I had to make another handspun wool/alpaca hat for Mr. SABLE because Owen claimed the first one for himself. Owen tried to claim the replacement, too, but I think he got told a thing or two.