Yarn Rambles

A tangle of cables

Having had a lovely spinning day on Saturday, I woke up on Sunday all ready to focus on my neglected Aran cardigan.

 

The first step was to find a cardigan I already like to use as a guide for the length of my new cable sweater. The length from the bottom of the ribbing to the shoulder seam is twenty inches.

It took a few minutes to get everything arranged. My little bag of knitting tools, a mug of strong tea and a few cookies. I haven't been able to enjoy this sweater while I was doing my secret knitting so it was pleasant to become reacquainted. I knit for awhile and then laid it out flat to admire my work. What? A mistake! Right there in the front right cable panel. Ok, take a breath. I can just drop down the stitches and work it all back up correctly. It was quite a long way down but not too much of a problem.

    

But, wait! Another one in the back left cable panel!!

And, another in the front left cable panel!! Good grief!! I clearly had been distracted during the few times I've been able to knit on my treasured cardigan. I decided that I needed to walk away for the rest of the day so I packed up my cardigan and relaxed with my current pair of Big Black Socks.

 

I brought the cardigan into the office on Monday in order to collect sympathy. After I took my blog photos, I started on the right front panel. I learned that when you are working with a complicated cable, you have to drop down the stitches from the entire repeat (26 stitches). All of the stitches travel around so much that they are rather tangled.

I used a second set of circular needles to work my correction knitting. After each "row" it was easy to slide the stitches to the other end of the cable in order to start all over again.

It took awhile for me to get the hang of keeping a good tension on each single strand so that I had enough yarn to finish the last couple of stitches at the end. I used a crochet hook to adjust the stitches after every row.

The right front panel is the one that goes down the farthest so once I finish it I will be finished with the worst. My sister is visiting this weekend but will head back home Sunday morning. So, again, I will find myself settled into my knitting spot to work on my cardigan. Hopefully I will be able to finish all the repair work and start up with the regular knitting on Monday.   

All Finished with Secret Knitting!

Apologies for my lagging blog entries the last couple of weeks but I have been conducting secret knitting experiments that can't be shared with you yet. I am so sorry but you will be very happy in a couple more months when you see what we have set up!

But, I finished my Secret Knitting last week so I was able to attend a spinning/knitting day on Saturday. I haven't been able to indulge in a whole day of social spinning in ages! The meeting was called through the Ravelry Clark County Knitters Group. Carol -Fiber Maniac on Ravelry - greeted me at the door.

Later, Carol joined the spinners and shared her stunningly beautiful handspun shawl! And, it was spun with a drop spindle!!! And, she has only been spinning for a few months!!!

Carol is one of those naturally enabling people. Her enthusiasm and skill can't help but make you feel like you want to be "just like her"!

She showed us her collection of drop spindles like this lovely one and then settled down with her Spindolyn. I have no idea why I don't have a photo of her using the Spindolyn! But, check out the website!

Guess what I ordered first thing Monday morning! I love that the "drop" part of drop spindling is completely removed. I can see how much easier it would be to spin and get more spinning done with this ingenious tool. Long airplane trips are going to be very productive!

New Yarns!

Samples of some of our new warm weather yarns arrived this week. We didn't get in all of the lace yarns but I found plenty to enjoy.

 

Shimmer - Bayou

 

Gloss -

Aegean and Chipotle

 

Gloss -

Parsley and Porcini

And, the whole happy family!

Color to the rescue!

Fortified with chili and hot chocolate, I was very happy to spend Saturday dyeing a couple of skeins of Bare Fingering weight yarn. My plan was to do a sort of tie-dying so that I could play around with several colors and have a certain amount of surprise with the result.

The first step was to twist the loops of yarn into tight skeins. I didn't soak the yarn overnight because I didn't want the dye to be taken up evenly. Instead, I hoped that the liquid dye baths would be taken up slowly and unevenly with different colors.

I stuffed one entire skein into each jar. I wanted to make two completely different colors of yarn since 100 grams each would be enough for a pair of socks.

I set up two sets of three dye colors to use as the dye baths. I made a mix of what I wanted to be the main color, added a couple of tablespoons of vinegar to set the color and then poured it over the yarn in the jar.

I steamed the two jars in my canning pot sitting in the rack just above the simmering water.

 

After thirty minutes, I used a spatula to keep the yarn in the jar while I poured out the dye bath. Then I ran hot tap water into the jar until the water ran clear. I poured out the rinse water and then added the second dye bath.

After the second bath, I repeated the rinsing process. One of the skeins looked very nice with just two colors so I laid it out to dry. But, the second skein still had white sections in the middle of the twist so I unwound it a bit, put it back in its jar and poured in a third color. After the second skein was finished, I wanted to give both skeins a bit of a headstart in the drying process. I wrapped each one up in a towel and gave them a quick turn in the spin cycle of the washing machine. I laid them over our clothes drying rack and they were dry by Sunday morning!

   

A very satisfying day!

Let it snow!!

I didn't have time to share my weekend experiences before we went on vacation. The snow photos look strange to me because it seems that our harsh winter weather finally stopped while we were in California soaking in some sunshine. When we got home Monday night, Xena was thrilled to find that our grass was again available for necessities. We are back to our regular weather pattern of high clouds and rain.

   

The last snowstorm resulted in a layer that was up to Xena's back. She had to leap, recover her balance and then leap again as she made her way. When I took her out on Saturday morning there were some deer in the driveway. Normally, Xena would have been off like a bolt of lightening which is why I usually have her on a leash. But, with the deep snow she could only make very slow leaping progress barking the entire time. The deer ran off giving her great satisfaction.

I fell back on classic snow bound treats like chili and hot chocolate with a deep layer of miniature marshmallows. The Stagg brand has a lovely vegetarian version called Garden Medley, or something like that. Covered with grated, sharp cheddar cheese, it is absolutely delicious.

Knitter's Almanac - February

I know I am still working on my Aran sweater from January but I am taking the easy route for February.

There are three distinct projects. First, the baby outfit. Second, a double-knit blanket. Third, a square shawl. So many lessons, so little time!

I promised I would knit the shawl for Xena's breeder, Lora. Remember, she went to the Black Sheep Gathering and was drawn to natural colors - mainly greys and blacks. She wears black, white and grey because she travels a lot and that makes it easy to pack. She is also often in over air-conditioned meeting rooms so a shawl would be ideal.

I've chosen Suri Dream because of the warm, soft, fuzziness. The colors will be Stone and Black Forest. I'll start the center with Stone and knit until that ball is gone. Then switch to a ball of Black Forest. The increasing circumference of the shawl will cause the stripes to become more and more narrow as long as I switch colors after every ball.

Because Suri Dream is so fuzzy, I'm not going to bother with a fancy lace design. Just plain knitting. I'm considering a simple picot edging.

I used the Magic Loop method for Emily Ocker's cast-on. After crocheting the first 8 stitches, I transferred them to my long circular needle. Then I split the stitches to have 4 on each side of the loop. From then on, it was very easy to work the stitches. MUCH better than trying to handle them with four DPNs or even 2 24" circulars. Once I get enough stitches to fit around a 24" circular, I will transfer over to that needle.