Posted: July 18th, 2010 | Author: admin | Filed under: things I spin | Tags: fleece artist, handspun, spinning, wool | 1 Comment »
Oh man, the wheel. The wheel. I’ve been playing with it so much over the past week, and having so much fun spinning on it. It’s like a spindle, but better! Everything goes so quickly! I don’t drop it!
Laura came by and showed me how to use it last week, and since then I’ve been slowly working through a stack of Fleece Artist slivers as practice. I’m doing something a bit different with each one, and it’s kind of neat to be able to see myself getting better as I keep spinning.
This is my very first wheel-spun yarn, made from Fleece Artist merino.
It’s wildly, wildly overspun (I took pictures of the “nice” side on purpose, the other half of the skein is full of bits twisted over on itself), but look how nice it looks! It’s so much more even than my last handspun!
I also spun this yarn, out of Fleece Artist BFL.
I love it. It’s definitely the best I’ve spun to date, and I sort of wish I had more so I could really make something out of it. It was my first attempt at chain plying on a wheel, and then whole time I was doing it I was positive it was a disaster and I was wrecking my lovely singles, but it turned out so nicely. This is a bigger yarn, about 7 wpi, and I’ve only got 50m or so. I’m really hoping I can figure out something to make with it, though, because I’m so very proud of myself.
Posted: March 28th, 2010 | Author: admin | Filed under: projects: sesame (olympic sweater 2.0), sweaters, tanis fiber arts green label, things I spin, things i knit, yarn i use | Tags: cardigans, fleece artist, handknit, knitting, roving, sesame cardigan, singles, spinning, stripes, sweaters | 2 Comments »
I’ve been busy lately, as I’m sure you all can tell by the relatively sparse posting, but things are slowly getting done as I chip away at my ongoing projects.
My roving is now entirely singles, and I’m so proud of them it is a little embarrassing.
The sweater is progressing, as well, and I don’t want to speak too soon, but I think this iteration is turning out a little better than the last one. I sat down and blocked all of the pieces after I’d finished the first sleeve, because I’d been fretting that this sweater would bloom on blocking just as unexpectedly as the last one did. But after sewing everything together, I’m much more confident that this one will fit the way I’d like it to. Making it has been a pretty cool learning experience for me.
Posted: October 24th, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: cascade 220, mittens, projects: thrummed mittens, things i knit, yarn i use | Tags: crafty, fleece artist, handmade, knit, knitting, mittens, thrum, thrummed mittens | 3 Comments »
It is so, so satisfying to have these mittens done. They were a positive project experience from start to finish, which was such a delight. I’m so glad to have made them, too – playing with roving to make the thrums was a really satisfying, educational experience (that does not make me want to learn to spin, I swear), and I managed to split the colour changes just right to have two mittens that matched, exactly the way I was hoping they would.
They’re also going to be almost inhumanly warm, which you perhaps can’t tell from the photo above, but you can definitely tell in this picture.
Pattern: the Fleece Artist “thrum mitten” pattern from my LYS, sort of.
Yarn: Fleece Artist Merino Sliver roving, 50g, and one skein of Cascade 220 in black
Needles: 4mm dpns
Modifications: I did a lot of googling before I started this project, and came to a few decisions about things I wanted in my mittens that weren’t in the pattern I had. I wanted a bit of a ribbed cuff – so I knit that, instead of the cuff in the pattern. And then I wanted to have staggered rows of thrums, so I went ahead and did that, too. By the time I got to the top of the mitten and the thumb, I’d sort of given up on reading the pattern, so I went ahead and made them up – but I feel like they’re pretty close to what was written, so whatever.
I also added an idiot string – partly on the advice of Julie, who pointed out that these mittens are not going to fit in my pockets, which, if you’re me, means that there’s a good chance I’ll lose one. I also added it in part because I’ve always wanted to make myself mittens on a string. Just because.
I knit the string by picking up 3 stitches from the cuff, on the side opposite the thumb. I then worked roughly 342098 meters of i-cord, and when I felt that it was about as long as my armspan (plus a bit extra) I picked up three stitches from the cuff of the other mitten, in the same place, and grafted it to the i-cord.
It was wonderful. I wish that I could make these mittens not-black for just a minute, so that I could do a better job of showing you how well it worked out.
