Big Plans for 2016

I've never been much of one for new years resolutions but there are a few crafty type big/long term projects that have been churning in my mind for a while now that I would like to accomplish.

1. Plan my wedding. I forgot about this at first but I'm going back now after hitting publish to edit it to the top of my list. So Bran and I are engaged now and I suppose I'll actually have to like plan the wedding at some point. I've already suggested going to the courthouse twice, but realistically thats not the way we'll do things. Maybe I should knit myself a wedding shawl. That sounds much more fun than the rest of the planning.

2. Sheepy Sweater. I've already started this project but there is still a ways to go before it is finished. Plus I'll actually need to be brave enough to steek it when the knitting is finished.

3. Fox Paws. This pattern is amazing and a few months back I used a knitpicks gift card from my Aunt and Uncle to buy enough yarn for two of these scarves using different color palates. But I know it will take some serious knitting fortitude and therefore expect the project to take forever.

4. Sweater with a colorwork yoke using handspun alpaca. I spun this yarn during the TDF with this project in mind. I may actually end up needing a bit more yardage which would be fine. But more importantly I also need to pick a pattern and do all of the knitting.

5. Ruana for Carolyn. She gave me a literal car trunk full of alpaca fiber this summer. Turning some of that fiber into a garment for her is only appropriate.

6. Another sweater from handspun. Exact fiber and sweater pattern tbd. But probably something fairly plain that features the yarn. I had this in mind when I purchased the Polypay X fiber so that would probably be ideal. But really there are many options.

7. Striped featherweight sweater. This summer one of my laceweight TDF yarns was destined for a shawl but a friend tried to convince me it should be a sweater instead. I stuck with my original plan but the handspun striped sweater idea is also awesome and should totally happen. Plus I've already made like 3 featherweight sweaters so they are obviously quite doable (if we ignore the fact that there are already way too many sweaters on this list). And I may have also already knit a swatch back in the summer to test the idea.

8. Linen stitch scarf with handspun singles. This is an idea I've been working on. I've already spun up a few fibers from Hobbledehoy with this project in mind. I don't actually need to finish the whole thing during the year as I'm envisioning it as a project of many different yarns all blended together. But a solid start and some progress would be nice. The swatch has already been knit.

Other less specific but still worth goals:

9. Spin at least 1 skein of yarn each month. In the past my spinning has been rather bunched into big bursts often related to big events. A more regular habit would be nice.

10. Blog more often. Once a week really ought to be more than doable.

11. Weave things. I got a wonderful rigid heddle loom for Christmas from my parents! I've already made one scarf and need to get better at using it.

12. Project 366. Take at least one photo a day. Likely to be all phone camera photos posted to Instagram because its convenient and therefore more likely to happen.

13. Get better at dyeing. Pretty much just by doing more of it. I also really need to figure out a recipe for a nice brown. Or cave and buy a brown dye.


There are probably other ideas that I have forgotten but really I think if I accomplish half of these things I will be quite happy.

PS: Helo helped write this post (this is not posed, he climbed up when I was already typing):

Stocking Ornaments Pattern

I've been making these stocking ornaments for a few years now. Originally I found a wonderful pattern from Little Cotton Rabbits. I loved the look of the stocking but I didn't like having to seam it up (and I'm not a fan of color-work that is knit flat). So I came up with my own stocking ornament in the round. A friend recently asked for the pattern so here you go.

Notes on the pattern:
I like to use fingering weight wool yarn with size 1 needles because they are comfortable for me. Any size yarn or needles will work. Different size yarn will give different size ornaments. Using wool yarn and blocking after finished helps even out the pattern and keep everything neat and tidy. I just typed this up without looking up knitting terminology so most things are spelled out. I've also included some notes on how I distribute the stitches on my needles but feel free to adjust and do what feels comfortable to you so long as you follow the stitch counts.

Top:
Using contrast color cast on 24 stitches, distribute evenly on three needles and join to work in the round. Leave tail to use for loop for hanging.
Row 1: Purl
Row 2: Knit
Row 3: Purl
Row 4-21: Join Main Color and knit.
If you would like to include a pattern insert it into this portion of the main color. The pattern should be over 24 stitches and I generally like to have 2 rows of solid main color above and below. Feel free to add a few rows if needed to accommodate your pattern.

Heel:
Row 1: Change to Contrast Color, knit 7, turn work. (Place remaining MC stitch on needle with other MCs)
Row 2: Slip 1, purl 6, with second needle purl 7, turn work. (distribute the remaining MC stitches evenly over 2 needles. You will not be working with these stitches during the heel. Move all of the CC stitches onto one needle to work the heel.)
Row 3: Slip 1, knit 13, turn work
Row 4: Slip 1, purl 13, turn work
Row 5: Slip 1, knit 13, turn work
Row 6: Slip 1, purl 13, turn work
Row 7: Slip 1, knit 13, turn work
Row 8: Slip 1, purl 13, turn work
Row 9: Slip 1, knit 9, k2 together through the back, knit 1, turn leaving 1 stitch on needle
Row 10: Slip 1, purl 7, purl 2 together, purl 1 , turn leaving 1 stitch on needle
Row 11: Slip 1, knit 6, k2 together through the back, turn leaving 2 stitches on needle
Row 12: Slip 1, purl 4, purl 2 together, turn leaving 2 stitches on needle
Row 13: Slip 1, knit 4, knit 2 together through the back, knit 1, turn
Row 14: Slip 1, purl 5, purl 2 together, purl 1, turn
Row 15: Slip 1, knit 3
You should have a total of 8 heel stitches 4 on each needle.

Foot/Toe:
Row 1: Change to Main Color, knit 4, pick up 5 stitches (4 from slipped heel stitches 1 from the MC at base of heel), knit 10 (put first of 10 on needle 1, 8 on needle 2, and 1 on needle 3), pick up 5 stitches (1 from MC at base of heel 4 from slipped heel stitches), knit 4 (I knit them using the 4th needle then transfer to needle 3).
Row 2: Knit
Row 3: Knit 7, knit 2 together, knit 10, ssk, knit 7
Row 4: Knit 6, knit 2 together, knit 10, ssk, knit 6
Row 5: Knit 5, knit 2 together, knit 10, ssk, knit 5
Row 6-11: Knit
Row 12-13: Change to Contrast Color, knit 2 rows
Row 14:  Knit 2, knit 2 together, knit 3, knit 2 together, knit 4, knit 2 together, knit 3, knit 2 together, knit 2
Row 15: Knit
Row 16: Knit 3, knit 2 together, knit 3, knit 2 together, knit 3, knit 2 together, knit 3
Draw yarn through remaining 15 stitches and draw tight to close.

Weave in ends on inside and tie a little loop in the top for hanging. Wet block to even out knitting (it really does make it look much neater!).

Good luck and let me know if you have any questions or if I've made any mistakes!

Here are a few of the colorwork patterns that I have used. Click to make them bigger. Please note the patterns are oriented as they appear on the final stocking. When knitting you will need to start in the upper left corner and move from left to right, top to bottom (this is the opposite direction from what you will be knitting).

Many more awesome colorwork patterns can be found here! You'll have to tweak them a bit so let me know if you have any problems.

Raw fiber to sweater

After a conversation with someone about making a Ruana, (it’s kind of like a free-form sweater) from handspun alpaca I was inspired to attempt a calculation of how long would it really take me to make such an item?

In thinking about the project initially I had looked at this pattern: Knit Ruana by Annie Dempsy. It calls for ~1000 yards of Super Bulky Yarn. I was excited about the Super Bulky because it means the actual spinning of the yarn and the knitting will go much faster. However further thinking reveals that I neglected to factor in that this will be offset in part by the volume of fiber that I will need to process. Crafting it seems has its own system of checks and balances.

For the purposes of my calculations I also relied heavily on past/current experience making “Foot-Oven” socks. I’ve knit the pattern multiple times in the past. And I’m currently working on spinning hand processed alpaca into Super Bulky Yarn to make two more pairs (possibly three if I keep going and make a pair for myself).

I just finished two skeins of yarn for the socks. Together they weigh approximately 8 ounces and are 174 yards of yarn. If I need 1000 yards of yarn for the Ruana that means I’ll need approximately 46 ounces or 2.8 pounds of yarn. When working with raw fiber you lose a good bit of weight from the dirt that washes out and from things like shorter bits of fiber that aren’t desirable. So I figure I’ll want to wash about 5 pounds of fiber.

Washing alpaca fiber isn’t a necessary step (especially because it has no lanolin) but I enjoy working with the fiber much more after it is washed. Alpacas are incredibly dusty. So much so that despite the washing when I get to the spinning step I generally have dirty lines on my hands from the fiber passing over a specific place on my hand. Washing takes up quite a bit of time although a lot of it is spent waiting. These days tend to wash batches of ~ ½ a pound or 8 ounces. It involves letting the fiber sit and soak in one or two baths of soapy water then 3 rinses. And it takes me 1.5-2 hours. I’ll usually only wash 1 batch on a given evening. On the weekends I can get 2 possibly even 3 batches done. Except at that point drying space becomes an issue. The fiber then takes 1-2 days to dry. So if I work rather intently I can get everything washed in about 2 weeks. However I don’t think I’ll include this in my calculations just because its more of “passive” time than active.

After I have clean fiber I can start combing it into top. The combs are my newest fiber toy and I’ve only made myself bleed a few times. They work absolutely amazingly well with alpaca so I’m able to process it from the raw locks into the top ready to spin much more quickly. Based on recent history I’d anticipate combing 1.5 ounces in about an hour. So in total that’s about 31 hours of combing.

Up next is the spinning. The fact that I’m going for super bulky yarn finally speeds things up! For the socks I was able to spin 4 ounces of prepared fiber into approximately 87 yards of yarn in around 3 hours. For the full project I’d be looking at 34 hours of spinning.

And lastly would be the knitting. I haven’t actually knit up the socks yet this year so I’m stretching back in my memory and doing some pretty serious guesstimating to say that I think I can probably knit up about 200 yards of yarn in around 6 hours. Using that very rough estimate I would be around 30 hours of knitting time for the full project.

All together I’m looking at around 95 hours or approximately 4 days of solid work to go from raw sweater to finished project. And realistically most of my time estimates are probably best-case-scenario and in the real world things will take longer. But I am not at all intimidated. I look at it as a super amazing project that I can accomplish over the course of a few months and I’m looking forward to tackling it in 2016.

It's sweater season

October starts tomorrow and the forecast high is only 64 degrees. I hereby declare that it is officially sweater season.

And because I am crazy that means I really need to get working on the sweaters that have been living in my head.

First and most importantly is the sweater that I promised Father for Christmas. He declined to participate in the pattern and yarn selection so this is what I've chosen for him!

The only thing I'm unsure of is if i want to keep the cables on the arms or if stockinette arms would look better.

Men's sweaters require ridiculously large amounts of yarn. Also please ignore the fact that I almost immediately messed up one of the cables when i was knitting the gauge swatch.

Up next I decided to try my hand at another crochet sweater. I'm actually hoping I can finish it in one month. Crochet is totally fast, right? I am probably delusional.

I'm not a huge fan of most crochet sweaters but I like the simplicity of this one.

And my yarn. The swatch is a different color but it was the same yarn. I'll add the trim and decor colors later. Also the yarn is cream/tan not grey. I was trying to take pictures at dusk.

And lastly I want to make this awesome sheep-y cardigan because it's awesome. Happily for my sanity I don't have any real or self imposed deadlines for this sweater. It has a steek which is when you knit the whole sweater as if it was a pull-over and then cut it to make the cardigan. I'm excited and scared at the same time.

Due to the quantities of yarn that I found on sale I anticipate switching the grey and the blue for my own sweater.

A word to the wise: Don't leave your swatch in progress out in the craft room. The cat might decide the skein of yarn looks fun and you'll find it downstairs in the living room where you can follow the yarn trail up to the swatch on the needles still upstairs.

Time to get crafting...

2015 Tour de Fleece

TDF is most widely recognizable as The Tour de France. The epic 21 day cycling race around France. I am probably, at best, a casual follower of pro-cycling. When talking to average Americans who know nothing about cycling I sound quite knowledgeable. When talking to average cycling fans I probably sound like I know nothing. But I like watching the race quite a bit. It's fun.

But more importantly TDF also stands for the Tour de Fleece! The Tour de Fleece is an annual spin-along during the Tour de France. Every day that they spin on the bikes, we spin yarn. This year marks my 5th year of TDF participation. Over those years my spinning abilities have grown by leaps and bounds. And that growth is probably in large part due to the goals and challenges I make for myself with TDF spinning.

This year I tried to cut back on being overly ambitious with my goals. But I'm seriously addicted to fiber and failed miserably at exercising restraint when I ended up with some ridiculous goals. And then I stayed up late many nights spinning.

My goals were as follows:

My primary goals are:

1. Spin 113 grams of GalesArt Polwarth and Silk Blend into a fine two ply laceweight to be used for a shawl.
2. Spin 498 grams of Max (brown) and Lance (fawn) into a fingering or slightly heavier yarn to be used for a sweater with a colorwork yolk.
3. Ride my bike, bumblebee, at least 221K (137 miles) to match the longest stage of the race. Hours and hours spent watching the race and spinning yarn really isn’t a good reason to ignore actually maintaining some fitness.

If those are going well I may also focus on my secondary goals:

1. Spin 142 grams of Hilltop Cloud Cobblestones gradient. Inspired by the famous and sometimes devastating feature in some bike races it seems only appropriate to start this project when the cyclists go over the pavé on day 4.
2. Spin up the 122 gram dying experiment of my own creation. I mostly just wanted to add more color to things.
3. And if everything is going really really well I will add in 122 grams of black alpaca spun to match the Cobblestones yarn so that I can use them together in some kind of amazing knitted something, probably a shawl.

By the end of the tour I had accomplished the following:
 1608 yards of laceweight wool/silk nicknamed Tourmalet.
876 yards of Max and 184 yards of Lance the alpacas.
I biked 139 miles on Bumblebee the bike.
384 yards of Cobblestones and still two unspun colors.
236 yards of my own hand dyed Experiment.
I didn't touch the black alpaca.
But I did add in plying of the previously spun Lemon Blueberry singles for a finished yarn at 632 yards.

GRAND TOTAL OF 3920 YARDS/2.08 POUNDS OF YARN

(thats 2.23 miles of yarn) 

This fiber was purchased at Maryland Sheep and Wool from Gales Art. During the tour I named the project Tourmalet in honor of the famous mountain in France often featured during the TDF as the peloton races up its slopes.

It spun up using my trindles as a wonderful laceweight yarn. I cannot believe how much yardage I got (1608 yards).

This alpaca fiber comes from a friends pets. Before the tour started I prepped the fiber from its raw state into these little balls of fiber.

My plan is to make a sweater with color-work around the yoke and possibly other places (sleeves hem). I'm actually probably a little bit short on yardage for that however. So I need to get more fiber and do a bit more spinning.

 

 A before picture of the biking is a bit more difficult. So here's Bumblebee waiting by the river to start a ride.

And this is what i looked like after the final 30ish mile ride.

 Here are the unspun Cobblestones. They were purchased from Hilltop Cloud. She based the colors on a picture of cobblestones, a feature of stage 4 of this years TDF.

 In the end I was very short on time so I sacrificed the spinning of the final two colors. But I'm sure I'll get to them soon.

This fiber was my dyed by me! I have fancy acid dyes now and am learning to use them. My aim was to have Red, Yellow, Orange, Green, Blue, Purple all mixed up in sections on this fiber and I was going to call it "Skittles". In practice the green took over most of it somehow and it was renamed "Experiment".

The finished yarn makes me think of Christmas.

Alas since giving up sleep entirely is not such a smart plan I did not end up spinning any of the black alpaca whose yarn was to go along with the Cobblestones:

But I did end up finishing another project that was already mostly spun up. The fiber started as these super amazing wonderful little battlings from Hobbledehoy that I purchased at Maryland Sheep and Wool.

Before the TDF started I spun them all so they were in two batches of single strands like this.

To finish I plied the two strands together and the final yarn is this amazingness.

It was a good TDF.