Spin and Knit

Remember this post  when I mentioned the 2 skeins of handspun. 

The top skein (darker blue) is BFL fiber from Corgi Hill Farm and the bottom skein (lighter blue) is BFL/Alpaca from Tylacine.  I enjoyed the spinning as the fiber was so smooth to spin with. After plying, the yarn is between a lace weight and a fingering weight. 

I did cast on and knitted a vest.......

I used the lighter blue yarn for the bottom lace band and the edgings around the arms and neck. The body was knitted with the dark blue yarn which stripes nicely. I extend the lace from the band up the 2 sides of the vest so that it shapes nicely without having to knit any shaping.

The vest turned out nicely and I was happy with it, so I entered it in the Perth Royal Show (an annual state show). The vest was awarded the 1st prize in the Handspun Section for an article made with machine prepared fiber.....

This is the 1st time that I entered in the Hand Spinning Section and it was really a great surprise for me to win a prize as I am still quite an amateur in spinning. 

I also entered several items in the Hand Knitting Section which I will share with you next week ......

At Last, A FO !

I managed to finish a shawl which I have been knitting for the last 3 months as I was making it up as I go. My main objective was to try out the yarn - Noro Sekku.

I love the colors of Noro but had an allegric reaction to it many years ago. Recently, I saw a ball of Noro Sekku for sale at my Spinning Guild & decided to give it another try. This time, there was no allergic reaction which was great. But I am really disappointed with the yarn.

Noro Sekku is lace weight & is a mix of cotton, wool & silk so it's soft. The colors are gorgeous but there was a knot in my ball & one of the colors was missing, so that messed up the color repeats. You can see that there is no red at the top of the shawl.

The spinning of the yarn is very irregular so there were sections of thick & thin as well as many sections of unspun yarn. This really created a problem as the yarn tangles a lot & sometimes even felt together. I had to stop very often to untangle the yarn & it also made knitting hard as I had to pull big chunks of wool through each stitch making the knitting uneven.

As the yarn was so colorful, I kept the knitting simple. The shawl is shaped as a semi-circle, with increases at the sides & the 2 spines. I use a faggot stitch on the spines just to keep the knitting interesting. 

I used a plain yarn for the border as a contrast. In fact, I like the border best.

So I have tried Noro but I did not enjoy knitting with this yarn. The colors are nice but I don't think I will be wearing such a colorful shawl, my girls called it the Rainbow Shawl. 

I have also been spinning & have finished 2 skeins of yarn for a vest. 

I love the colors ! The darker blue (BFL) is for the body of the vest & the lighter blue (alpaca) is for the bands. I will be designing the vest & now working on the swatch.

Another 2011 KIP Done !

I am so happy to finish off this pair of socks which have been sitting around for more than a year. It's an enjoyable & fast knit but I guess I was distracted with other projects & so did not spend time on it.

Here they are ......

I used the Hedera stitch pattern which I had to re-work as I knitted my socks from the toe-up. It's an easy to remember 4 rows pattern.

The yarn is one of my own first handspun Australian Melanian wool in it's natural color which is a mix of light & dark brown. Although this was spun when I first started spinning a year ago, I enjoyed the spinning & was able to spin quite finely. But the plying was not well done & the twist is not tight. I hope this will not affect the durability of the socks. Anyway, I will be the one wearing these socks & I do take care of my socks, so it should last.

On another matter - I have knitting journals where I keep notes of all of my projects. These journals have been very helpful as reminders of what changes I made to a project & I also refer to them when I knit similar projects. The most important are my notes when I am designing a project & there many designs in there that I am not 100% happy with & need more work in the future.

These are my journals from the last 6 years & I used whatever notebooks that I can find. But as the years go on, I started to keep an eye out for pretty notebooks & have a small collection to use.

Today, the scenario is different - ever since I had the iPad (May 2011), it has been my essential knitting tool. I carry it everywhere I go & it's always at my side when I knit. All my patterns are in the iPad & I made notes directly on the pattern when I am knitting. I am not using my journal now but I miss writing on the journal. I am also concerned that if something happen to my iPad, then all my notes are gone.

So what do I do? Do I still carry on using my journal or stay with the iPad?

My 1st Success

I have been spinning for a year & have spun a few skeins of yarn. But each skein of handspun is usually 200 - 300 yds & that's not enough for a shawl, maybe a hat or a pair of mittens. I did finished a skein of single ply which had more than 600 yds but it's not plyed & I am not sure of it's strength & durability when knitted.

Back in Dec, I started on another skein of fiber (polworth) which is nice & soft & this time, I tried my very best to spin as fine as possible.

It took me a while to finish spinning 100gms & then I had to ply the 2 singles together. I was surprised when I measured the plyed yarn - I had 550 yds of lace weight handspun! Wow, it was a major achievement for me as this is my 1st success in spinning fine yarn. I was really happy with it & could not stop admiring the lovely & soft yarn.

I specially choose this color for Helen as I wanted to spin it for her birthday in January. I did not finish spinning it in time for her birthday & I was also worried that the spinning may not be good enough. Anyway, it turned out well & I gave her the skein of handspun this week.

Remember my last post on my WIPs - well, I finished one of the socks. Now, I have a new pair of socks to add to my collection .....

Spinning By The Bay

The Spinning Guild held it's 1st event for 2012 - a spin-in by the bay.

It was a lovely place & we were able to spin under the pavilion with a nice breeze from the river. There were quite a number of spinners who turned up & we ended up sitting outside the pavilion.

It is so nice to be able to spend time with my spinning friends but I left at noon as the weather became hotter & it was not pleasant to continue spinning. It's a pity that the start of the year is in the middle of summer.

I managed to finish spinning this .....

..... a blend of merino, alpaca & silk. The silk makes the spinning a little difficult as it's slippery & I cannot spin a thinner yarn. So the result is a thicker yarn but I quite like the look of it as a single & decided not to ply it .....

Now I have more than 600 yds of this handspun & I love the colors. What should I knit? It will be a tough decision.

An Awesome Weekend

I just spent an AWESOME weekend with Jacey Boggs in her spinning workshop. It was an amazing weekend & also a very challenging one for me.

I knew that this workshop will be beyond my spinning capabilities as I have only started spinning 10 months ago but I did not want to miss this excellent opportunity, so I enrolled.

Jacey is an amazing teacher & she makes everything looks so easy. On the 1st day, we had to spin thin & thick yarn & I was struggling to do it as I have only been spinning thin yarn eversince I started spinning. We were taught different hand movements & trying to co-ordinate the hands & the feet was a difficult task.

It was also an experience walking around & admiring the different wheels in the workshop. There were 5 Ladybugs (including mine) & there were several Ashfords, Majacrafts & even 3 e-spinners. We also had a demo on Jacey's wheel which is a Lendrum & it is an amazing wheel.

I went home after the 1st day with aches all over the body. The 2nd day went better as I slowly managed some of the techniques & was able to produce some results. I never realised that spinning can be so technical & innovative.

I came home with these mini skeins of my handspun .....

..... coils, corespin, auto wrap, cocoons.

I love the look of these coils .... they are not perfect but they look good to me.

but my favorite are these cocoons as it's one technique that I managed to do well.

Although I may not have learnt everything that Jacey taught in the 2 days but I have gained an invaluable insight to some amazing spinning techniques. I am so glad that I went for this workshop as it is AWESOME ! Jacey mentioned that she may come back again next year & I hope so as I want to go to her workshop again.

The Ladybug Has Landed !

This was the email that I received from Emma, from Spunout. I was so excited when I read the email & immediately arranged to pick up the Ladybug.

.... my new spinning wheel ! It actually arrived in a box & took my husband a couple of hours to assemble it. I can't wait to try it.

It's spinning so smoothly & I love it. I have only been spinning for 6 months on my Ashford Traditional which is a great wheel to spin on but not portable. It was a chore to carry it around & loading it in my car when I go out for spinning. So I decided to give myself a treat & bought the Ladybug as it's more portable.

...... look at the little ladybug on the wheel.

As the weather is now cooler, I have been spinning more. I think I am building up a handspun stash as I can't knit fast enough. But I managed to knit this up with one of my earlier handspun on the Ashford, in fact, it's my first handspun that is navajo plyed.

As I have only 200+ yds of handspun merino, I decided to knit a sideway scarf/shawlette so that I can measure the weight as I go. I just increase on one side every 6 rows & also knitted an eyelet row in between increases. After using half of the ball, I started the decreases.

It turned out great & I managed to get a nice length of 80" so that it can go round my neck a couple of times. This is my 1st project knitted out of my own handspun - I am a fiber artist now !

A Bit More On Spinning

As some of you may be aware that I started spinning late last year & also rented a wheel. Well, spinning is here to stay as I bought a wheel .....

..... a 2nd hand Ashford Traditional from a friend. After a check-up at the shop & a couple of new parts, it's almost brand new & spinning so smoothly. As the weather has been very hot, I had moved indoors & now spinning in the corridor between the lounge & Lynette's room. It's a lovely place for spinning as it's bright & cool, with air-conditioning .....

I started with some merino ........

I then tried spinning with polwarth which I bought from a friend's destash .....

.... I love the feel of polwarth on my fingers - so soft & creamy ! I also love the end result .....

I think I need to increase my fiber stash, so I am off looking for more .....

This is So Gorgeous .....

..... that I have not stopped admiring it and it's mine !

I am so lucky to be gifted this beautiful shawl knitted by Molly in her own handspun. Remember the socks that I knitted for Molly & in return she knitted this shawl for me.

It's just so gorgeous & the handspun is so thin & well spun. Molly has really done a fantastic job & I love the shawl. You can see more pictures of the shawl here.

What made this shawl extra special is that it's knitted in my pattern, The Cathedral Shawl. Only one word can express my feelings when I look at the shawl, it's just so ..... perfect !

Thank you so much Molly !

Another 1st Handspun

..... no, this is not a repetition of my previous post. This is another 1st handspun with a wheel! I joined our local spinning guild & rented a wheel .....

It's a Sickinger & is quite small so it's just right for me. For the past 3 weeks, I have been sitting out on my patio, listening to all the oldies on the radio & spinning away .....

.... it is just so relaxing, although not at first when I was getting to know the wheel. I managed to spin 2 bobbins of Meridian wool in silver grey & dark grey ....

.... then I had to ply the 2 singles together & I had this bobbin of 2 ply wool .....

It was so exciting to see the finished product (although I can see several areas of imperfection). I weighed it & measured the length .....

.... I have a skein of 130 gms of 2 ply handspun wool & there's more than 500 yds in that skein ! I was so amazed that in 3 weeks (I did not spin everyday) I managed to spin so much but I did realised that I was spinning quite thinly. I am so happy with this wool & I can't wait to knit something out of it. I know there are lots of stuff that I have to learn about spinning but I think this is a good start.

Now I have to buy a wheel as I want to spin more & I have to return this wheel to the guild. I can't wait to get my own wheel !

Don't worry, this post is not all about spinning as I am still knitting. I pulled out my Hemlock Ring from the basket as my niece wanted a blanket. So I thought I will finish off the Hemlock Ring which I cast on 1.5 years ago. I don't know why I kept it for so long as it just took me a week to finish it off .....

.... but the blocking nearly killed me. It was so difficult to stretch out the feather & fan portion & then to pin each & every one of the cast off loop. It took me 1.5 hours ! But it was worth the effort when I stood back & saw the beautiful blanket.

It's hugh as it measure 46" across the diameter & I just love it. I was so worried that I will run out of yarn but I had enough - 8 balls of Jo Sharp DK wool which has been discontinued & I still have 1 ball left.

I love this edging as it's so pretty & really finished off the blanket well. I am so in love with this blanket & can see myself knitting on the couch next winter with this gorgeous blanket on my lap. I don't think I can give it away ..... I have to knit another blanket for my niece