As The Yarn Turns

A Day Looking at Old Stuff

Rick wanted to look for old speakers for old radios, so yesterday we went antique browsing and had a lot of fun. I wasn't looking for anything special. Mostly I was looking for some little inexpensive trinket that I couldn't live without. Well Rick didn't find his speakers but he still found a prize, a 1947 Arvin AM radio. It's cute as a button. I found my trinket, a pair of old cotton hand carders. They have obviously been used but they are still in fairly good shape.

Other than that, I've been doing a little bit of knitting (remember that cable sweater I was working on) and spinning a little bit of blue-faced leicester. I'm starting to accumulate quite a bit of blue-faced leicester yarn. Now all I have to do is figure out what I'm going to make with it.

If you haven't seen this yet, the American Red Cross is offering a World War II Commemorative Knit Kit, complete with needles, yarn, and World War II knitting pattern for servicemen's socks in a tin. They are also offering commemorative t-shirts and posters. What a great idea!

by Sydney  |

Dublin Bay Half Finished

One of the Dublin Bay socks is finished except for weaving in the ends. I really like the pattern and the yarn is wonderful to knit and wear. I only had two skeins of the Koigu yarn and each skein has 175 yards or 350 yards total. I figured that should be enough since I always have lots left over with with 400 yards. As the end of the first sock got closer, though, I was afraid it wouldn't be enough. It was enough, though, with a little bit left over. I wear size 7 (US) shoe and usually cast on 68 stitches of fingering weight with 9 st/in gauge in stockinette. My gauge was right on with these socks but they seemed a little on the large size. They still fit well, just not as snug as I would like them. If I had to do them over, I would cast on 64 stitches. Keep in mind if you have larger feet or like longer cuffs (mine were 6 inches), then you might want to grab an extra skein. So just one more sock to go.

Camel Yarn

I washed the camel yarn and it came out really nice and soft. It was much improved over the stuff right off the cone, as expected. I'm still thinking I will need to wash it before knitting. My knitting just isn't that even with it right off the cone.

Hemp Yarn

I have not ever knit with hemp yarn but it is starting to intrigue me. I have heard good things about hemp yarns from Lanaknits Designs so I'm thinking about ordering either the sample kit or enough yarn for a top. I'm not associated with the store in any way, just interested in the yarn. Not that I need something else to work on.

Ten Years

On another note, my husband and I have been married ten years this weekend. It really doesn't seem that long and I've enjoyed every minute of it.

 

by Sydney  |

Camel Yarn

Someone gave me a huge cone of cream colored Camel Yarn that looks to be about lace weight. I've never knit with camel yarn before. Right now I'm thinking about make a light shawl with it. From the looks of it, I should have plenty left over for something else too.

When I first started playing with the yarn, it seemed almost too fragile for any kind of garment. As I started playing with it, the yarn knits up nicely and not as fragile as I first thought. The only down side at the moment is that it has a tacky feeling that makes it hard to knit. No doubt that is the result of whatever treatment they put on it for machine knitting. For a first try, I knit up a simple garter stitch swatch with a US size 4 and then a US size 8 needle. (Results below) The next step is to wash it and block it and see how the final result looks. I may end up putting some of the yarn in a skein to see if it will be easier to knit. After that I plan to try some of the patterns in Barbara Walker's "Treasury of Knitting Patterns". It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

Itsy Bitsy Spiders

So the other night I woke up and felt something crawling on me. I thought I brushed it off and onto the floor so I went back to sleep. The next day I had a huge welt about 2 or 3 inches wide on my arm. It's not painful, just looks ugly. It turns out it was spider crawling on my arm. I must have just knocked him into the bed and then rolled over on him. That's when he bit me. It wasn't a black widow or a brown recluse but I did learn a few things from this. Apparently all spiders are poisonous. It's just that some are worse than others. The other thing I've learned is to make sure the critter crawling on your arm is out of the bed before you go back to sleep.

by Sydney  |

Easter Egg Yarn Finished!

It's done. I've finished the Easter Egg Yarn. That's almost record time for me. I've read about several ways to set the twist in yarn. I usually just dunk it in some warm water for a few minutes and then hang it to dry. Before I set the twist on this yarn, it was about 110 yards. It's probably a little less than that now. The Wraps per Inch (wpi) is about 15 plus or minus. I'm still a beginner at spinning though so it's not the most even yarn on the face of the planet. I really like the yarn; I just haven't decided what to do with it yet.

Dublin Bay Socks Progress

I'm moving right along with the Dublin Bay socks in Koigu. I just turned the heel of the first sock. I used an Eye of Partridge pattern for the heel flap.

There are several versions of this pattern and I haven't decided which one I like the best. I usually use a slip stitch border on the heel flap. So all the versions of this I've tried have a slip stitch border. To me it's easier to pick up the gusset stitches. This is one version of pattern.

Row 1: *Sl 1, K 1* repeat between the * to the end

Row 2: Sl 1, purl across to the end

Row 3: Sl 1, *Sl 1, K 1* repeat between the * to the end, ending with K 1

Row 4: Sl 1, purl across to the end

I didn't particularly like the idea of two slip stitches on the edge, but in practice it worked out okay. This time though I tried a slightly different version.

Row 1: *Sl 1, K 1* repeat between the * to the end

Row 2: Sl 1, purl across to the end

Row 3: Sl 1, K 1, *K 1, Sl 1* repeat between the * to the end, ending with K 1.

Row 4: Sl 1, purl across to the end.

This version seems to work equally well. You can't really see the beauty of the Eye of Partridge stitch with this yarn though. The variety of colors overshadows it.

 

by Sydney  |

Plying Easter Egg Yarn - Continued

Have you ever wondered when a spindle is too full? When it looks like the one below.

Actually it worked very well until I got near the end and I started having trouble with it. I was stubborn though and really wanted to finish the rest of it without stopping. It took some coaxing but I was able to get the rest of it on there. Once I got it all plied, I wrapped it on a niddy noddy so I could skein it and set the twist. You can get some really nice wooden niddy noddies. This particular niddy was a PVC niddy noddy. They are great if you are short on money, you want something more durable than a wooden one, or you want something that can get wet. The nice thing about this one is that I can twist it so it lays flat or take it apart for storage.

I found the instructions on the Internet somewhere but they are easy enough to make. I took one five foot length of 1/2 inch diameter PVC pipe and cut it into one 18 inch piece and four 6 inch pieces. Then I took two PVC T connectors (also 1/2 inch diameter) and placed one each end of the long piece. The short pieces go in the sides of the T connectors to make a kind of capital "I". When you use it you twist one end so it's rotated 90 degrees from the other end.

After you have wrapped the yarn around it, it looks something like the picture below. That's Katie Cat checking out the niddy noddy in the upper right corner of the picture. I found some good instructions for wrapping yarn on a niddy noddy in Hands on Spinning by Lee Raven. The book is small and reasonably priced but has a lot of information in it for its size. There are also some good online instructions for Using a Niddy Noddy.

Now all that is left to do is to set the twist.

by Sydney  |

Plying Easter Egg Singles

The Blue-Faced Leicester (BFL) fiber dyed with Easter Egg colors has all been spun so today I started the process of plying. I already had some natural white BFL singles so I decided to ply with that. I like the contrast of the deep Easter Egg colors with the white. It keeps it bright. Up until now I've either plied two non-tensioned singles from two fat dowels, two empty toilet paper rolls, or two center pull balls (Hey it works) or I have plied a single back onto itself using the Andean Plying Bracelet technique. Before I tried Andean Plying, I would have thought that plying from two singles would work better. I was wrong though. With two singles, inevitably one or both of them twist back on them, so I have to start and stop a lot. Andean Plying goes much more smoothly, at least for me. Give it a try if you haven't already. There are step-by-step instructions with pictures here. This time though, I decided to use a technique I saw in a recent "Spin-Off" where you wind both singles in a ball and then ply from the ball. That way you at least only have one ball rolling around. I started winding my ball today but ran out of white singles. I'll need to do a little more spinning before I can start plying the two together.

The Blog That Almost Wasn't

I almost wasn't able to update my blog tonight. Earlier tonight I went to update it and couldn't even open the Blog editor. First I installed over my current version. Then I uninstalled and reinstalled. That worked but it had been way too long since I set this up initially. I was starting to think I'd never get it back the way it was. The hazards of beta software. But I think it's back to its old self now, hopefully.

Arbor Day

A while back, okay a couple of years ago, I planted a variety of tiny trees in the back of yard. The plan was to replant them last year after they had grown a bit. Well we never got around to it last year and they are starting to get large. Since we just had Arbor Day and it was a cool, cloudy, damp day, we replanted one of the crabapple trees. Now it has a new home where it can stretch out its roots. Now if I can just take care of the rest of them.

by Sydney  |