Spinning!

I've gone and done it now. I got a wheel. Sure, I told myself, I'll do a bit of spinning. Some lovely friends gave me spindles, and I got some fibre, and went at it. And enjoyed it. But spindling is so slow. I had all this lovely fibre I wanted to spin, and wasn't getting anywhere fast. Given practice (years of it) you can spin in very large quantities with a spindle, but me being me, I couldn't wait. Besides, I had planned to get a wheel eventually, and when I got a little extra one off chunk of money, I decided now was the time.

All this was helped along by Claire, a friend who takes me to knitting sessions, offered to let me try out her wheel. After spinning a rather bad example of the art (left), I was hooked, and started looking for wheels immediately. Ravelry has a wide variety of destash and for sale boards, but getting one there is problematic for three reasons - 1) they're often in the States, 2) they're very often out of my price range and 3) they often get picked up before I even know they exist. Claire had suggested ebay, so I went and had a look. I found a few that I liked the look of, and after a couple days of looking focused on two. One had a "buy it now" option and was selling for £110 (I wanted to spend no more than about £100) including 2 carders, 7 bobbins, a lazy kate, and a few books on spinning. They're very old books, but they look fairly interesting. It turns out the seller was getting rid of a wheel her mother had when she passed away, and from the looks of the yarn on the bobbins, she spun up until the day she died.

I ended up having to pay a fair bit extra for shipping, but even with that added on, the wheel was a steal. I got it this afternoon and spent a few hours getting acquainted with it; how it works, how to get everything sorted so the fibre will twist and go on the bobbin, and what kind of tension system it had so I could adjust that, and finally getting to know what kind of speed it had. Claire's wheel was very fast, and I ended up overspinning badly because I wasn't used to spinning slowly. (On a spindle, you have to go fast if you want the fibre to turn into yarn - otherwise it just drifts apart.) My wheel, on the other hand, seems a lot slower, and I'm having no trouble with overspinning. I'm so in love with my little wheel. It's not like many out there for sale today, and took me awhile to find out how to work it. Most have what we call scotch tension, which uses a spring, and are a single drive, with the drive band from the wheel to the spindle going around the spindle only. Mine is a tilt wheel with a double drive, where the band is made into a figure 8 and spread between the spindle and the bobbin. The angle of tilt provides the tension.

I've decided wheels can be complicated little things.

The spinning wheel

This is the bobbin, which sits on the spindle. Those hooks make sure the yarn is distributed evenly over the bobbin. Extra bobbins are stored nearby, on pegs next to the wheel.

The spinning area from the back. This shows the bobbin on the spindle.  The little lever below is how you twist the  peg around which controls how far back the wheel tilts.

The spinning area as looking at the wheel from the front. See the way it's tilting back?  That's how the tension is controlled.

Watch this space for more yarn-y goodness! As soon as I have pictures, my knitting wip and my crochet wips will be going up. And more handspun, if I have any say about that as well.

Crochet Creativity

The last few months have seen me very busy, which is the main reason I haven't posted here. When I had a chance to stop, I didn't really have much energy to write anything, and for the majority of that time, I was away from home and my computer, using my brother's computer instead, which didn't really lend itself to blogging.

I didn't really get much knitting done while I was in the States. I found that having people around all the time to talk with, along with all the busy-ness my family gets up to, makes for enough distraction (albeit not bad) that I can't really focus on knitting. I did get a fair bit of crochet done, however. I took with me a large granny square that I had started the week before I left, and when I ran out of yarn for it, it was large enough to turn into a fringed triangle shawl. The yarn is Araucania Ruca, which is very pretty but splitty. I actually found it easier to crochet than to knit, and will probably work with it again.

Once I finished that, I found myself at rather a loose end. I'd gotten ahold of some pretty blue and white cotton and the Harmony Guide to crochet (in card form - 101 motifs and patterns), so I put those together with a little creativity and settled on a book cover. While I call it my design, it is based entirely on two stitches from the guide. You can find my write-up of how I did it here.

Once I finished that, I started playing around with single and double crochet in the round, and ended up with some hair accessories. I think I made 4, but they are all like these two. I'm enjoying designing crochet, and find it to be pretty easy despite my relative newness to the craft. I also got the outline of a purse which unzips flat, and plan to turn the original leather design into a knitted one. My designing life has begun, if rather tentatively.

Exciting knitting

I have a lot on the needles right now. So much for my resolution to have 2 things on the go at any one time - a lace project and a sock project. But I'm really enjoying almost everything I'm working on, with the exception of the test knitting project. The yarn for that is simply awful, and I am getting to the point where I simply can't work on it. I really should just frog the whole thing and start over in a different yarn - something animal instead of vegetable this time. Warning: doing cables with very splitty yarn is not a good idea! Said splitty yarn is very gorgeous however, so  I've been using it for other things. I decided to try it out crocheting, and found it to be surprisingly easy to work with. I actually finished this scarf, called Queen Anne's Lace (ravelry link) at the beginning of April, and was so pleased with it that I'm considering making another. I have enough yarn for it, certainly. It reminds me of ocean waves, with the blues and the greys seeming to crest together.

But I digress. What I'm really enjoying making is my second pair of socks, after the first turned out so well. I've chosen a pattern from Knitty called Spring Forward, a lacy sock that is proving easy and fast to knit. I'm breaking one of my sock rules and using a luxury yarn - merino and silk - with no nylon in it. Nylon is supposed to make the sock wear better and last longer. Heaven only knows how well these socks will wear, but I'm really enjoying making them. Pictures to come later, when I'm done with one of them.

Another surprise on my needles was a KAL called Morganna. It's a shawl designed by an Irish woman, and I bought the pattern as part of a charity drive to raise money for the Japanese disaster. It's a little slow going, since the rows are over 300 stitches long and there is cabling involved, but I love the yarn, a Blue Faced Leicester. It's a little darker than the picture shows, and will make a lovely shawl.

I'm making a long visit to my parents' home starting next month, and have planned out what I will be taking. I've put the patterns on my new Kindle, for ease of having them all in one place without papers getting all messed up while travelling. The Kindle is great for that kind of thing. I have one shawlette to work on, and several pairs of socks - I'll most likely take the lace project I started awhile ago. It's a stole that's knit in the Orenburg tradition, and while it's dead easy it's going to be absolutely gorgeous. You can see, even unblocked, how intricate it's going to look. I think the cobweb yarn that I picked rather because I liked the colour and the yardage was right is going to make another impact I hadn't thought of in making it look more delicate and airy. This makes me happy.

Gee, you think I like knitting lace? Oh yeah.

Dye

I was winding a ball of yarn from http://www.thenaturaldyestudio.com/ and when I looked down at my hands after finishing, one looked like this! It was highly amusing. I was able to wash it right off; I think it's probably the bit put on to keep the dye from washing right out, since the yarn is much lighter in colour than this.

Sock!

After being stuck on how to do the heel gusset for my first sock, I asked on Saturday at my bi-monthly stitch'n'bitch session at Get Knitted. Turns out I was simply reading the directions and making them more difficult than they really were - shows how well my brain works sometimes I guess. Once I found where my error was, I was keen to get started again on it. 

Cue me sitting down and working like a mad thing on my knitting this week. I didn't sleep much at night, and one of the few things I can do in the wee hours of the morning is knit, since it's quiet. I knit so much my hands started hurting rather badly, so I would switch to crochet for awhile, and then knit some more the next day when the hands had recovered. In this way, I've got a lot of my Juliana Wrap done on the hook and have finished the first half of the socks as well. The yarn is YarnAddict Merino Plus Twist, a combination of mostly merino wool plus some nylon to give it a little durability. It's apparently the best mix for socks. The cuff is a "knit through the back of the loop, purl" rib, and I found the twisted knitting a little tricky to do considering the fuzziness of the yarn, but once I got to the main part where you knit straight, it ceased being a problem. 

I'm really, really pleased with how it turned out. There are no holes in places where holes form easily if you're not very careful, (in fact, there are no holes at all) and I even found grafting the toe with the kitchener stitch to be rather painless. Given all the moaning people do about this particular finish, I was a little hesitant to try it, but my book on socks gives a good description of how to do it, so I just followed that and figured it out in no time. 

I made the smallest size, and they're a snug fit, but they do fit, thanks mainly to the ribbing. The yarn itself has no give at all really, but I found the sock to be comfortable, and look forward to getting both complete so I can wear them. I've cast on the second one and hope to have it done in a week or so - a lot more quickly than it took me to finish the first one! 

Tons on the go

One of my favourite designers, Anniken Allis, has written a new pattern to sell for a charity she's continually raising money for called Shelterbox. She asked on her blog for test knitters, and I thought it would be a good chance to try it for myself. I volunteered, and did so in a timely enough manner that I am now an official test knitter for this new pattern. It's essentially a long scarf that will be sewn together (or can be joined with a three needle bind off at the end instead) to form a type of cowl. So that will be my top priority for the next few weeks.

Other than that, I've got a lace project going  - very slowly - that I'm really enjoying. It's simple, just yarn overs and knit two together, but knit with cobweb yarn so I have to pay close attention to what's going on. I chose the yarn to reflect the name of the pattern. As something that's supposed to look like a body of water, shades of blue seemed appropriate.

I'm also working on my first pair of socks. I've got past the heel turn, but am stuck on where to pick up stitches for the gusset. Luckily, I had the foresight to get a book on making socks that looks like it will help. All I need to do is get my brain in gear so I can figure it out.

I was given some lovely yarn by a friend at Get Knitted Knatterers, and wanted to start something immediately with it. I have enough to make something large, and chose a vest pattern that ties like a corset at the front. It's bulky yarn, so it will be a winter only thing. It's knitting up really pretty. Mostly though, I've been doing crochet. I decided I wanted to learn how to make a granny square, and so I took some yarn I got for my birthday (the blue) and the wool I got in Columbus, and went to work. This is the first of what will be many.

I also finished a cape that I made in chunky red, and took two more balls than I thought it would. A long time in the finishing, because I had to get more yarn each time, which took time.

Nupps

I have been interested in lace knitting practically since I started. At first, I thought it was the epitome of the art; something difficult to aspire to someday, when you are really, really good. And then I learned it was really easy, or could be easy, and dived right in. Then I jumped right out again, looked up how to do a yarn over, and dived back in. Really, once you have yarn overs and the various kinds of decreases down, you're set - at least, for the most part.

Follow me here as I change the subject for a moment. According to a book I'm reading, three regions of the world have put their mark on lace knitting: the Orenburg region of Russia (round about the Ural Mountains), the Shetland Islands, and a particular little town in Estonia called Haapsalu. It travelled around to other parts of the country, but this is where Estonian lace really took on the characteristics that make it some of the most beautiful and complicated lace in the world. This is where nupps come in.

"Nupp" is the word for knob or button and looks exactly that. They were originally made because the shawls were sold by weight, and the nupps added weight to the shawls, so they could be sold for more. They also show a piece of lace is handknitted, since nupps can not be duplicated by machine. They're a tricky technique to master. It involves knitting into the same stitch at least 3 times, with  yarn overs in between, and then knitting all those stitches together back into one stitch on the following row, usually a purl row. It took a bit of experimenting until I got it at all, and not all the nupps in the pattern are exactly right.
Still, I can't be more thrilled with the shawlette as a whole. After washing and blocking, the openwork lace pattern is really visible and quite stunning, and the nupps have even settled down into being little balls instead of going in every direction like some of them were after knitting. You can see them in the picture, to the left of the openwork bit in the middle. While they can be tedious to make, at least now I know how, which is good, since there are other shawls I have lined up in the near future with this same technique.

The full shawl. Click to see a bigger (centered) picture