A Lloie Cardi All My Own

Last July at Knitting Camp, the sweater knitting urge took over. Really, how could it not when all of EZ, Meg and Joyce's sweaters are right there, available to try on and wear when the air conditioning gets cranked up. This is the sight of the tables after a day or so of camp.
One sweater in particular caught my eye--the Lloie cardi from last year's anniversary Woolgathering #79. It was wrapped around my shoulders so much I think some of the campers thought it was mine.

Well, now I do have one of my very own. Even though it's kinda unlike me to make a duplicate of the model, the colors of Lloie were so perfect that no changes were needed. The only different touch I made was to replace the regular ribbed borders with a lacy stitch pattern which reflects the colorwork at the yoke. It's also edged with a 2 stitch applied I-cord which gives a nice finishing touch.
Lots of different needles were used. Regular Addi turbos in size 3mm for the body section. Boy, how I've forgotten what it's like to knit inch after inch of St st in the rnd--the turbos give the speed needed especially with the stickiness of the Shetland yarn. The yoke was knit on Crystal Palace Bamboo needles in size 3.25mm. I like doing colorwork on wood needles as the stitches stay put when they're spread out and my tension stays even. And, my stranded st gauge tends to be tighter than my St st gauge, hence the need for a slightly bigger needle. The sleeves were knit on Addi turbos in size 3.25mm, just slightly larger than used for the body. That's because my small circumference gauge is tighter than when knitting a large circumference. Joyce Williams told me to watch out for this and when Joyce speaks, definitely listen! Yeah, it took me half a sleeve to remember that but once I did and checked gauge, out it came and reknit with the larger needle.

Since the body is steeked, but is a solid color, I wove a contrasting thread up while knitting to mark the beg/end of rnd figuring that it would make it easier to stay on track when crocheting the steek. Worked like a charm for these old eyes!
It's been five years since I've knit a sweater for myself and I'm, ahem, a different size now, so it took a bit of measuring to decide the proper size. Seems I miscalculated the length because when the yoke was finished and I tried it on (before the steek was cut), it seemed too long. What to do?

Well, perform some surgery.
I placed my needle through one side of the sts and snipped and unraveled a a thread as one would do for an afterthought heel. Then unraveled the requisite # of rnds and grafted back together.

You can still see the grafting line a bit here but a little steam works wonders.
Crocheted and cut the steek, applied some I-cord and voila, a finished Lloiecardi. It still hasn't been blocked in this pic. In fact, I even wore it to church this morning in it's unblocked state because the weather turned cold and it was just too fun to have a new handknit sweater.
Here's a close up of the yoke. I added more short rows at the top than specified in the instructions as the pic of Meg's sweater looked like it was done that way.
Besides, I hate when sweater necklines pull up and love how the white petals sort of get elongated.
Right here is where I should have a pic of me wearing it to insert. Maybe one of the knitters at Knitnight can take one of me this week.

Many more sweaters are in the works around here now so it definitely won't be another five years before another is finished. The sweet siren song of St st in the rnd, with a fun topping of stranding for a reward at the end is too strong to pass up. In fact, I'm thinking about always having a yoke sweater on the needles as a take along project.

Yoke sweaters--the new socks.

Fractal Socks

This summer I completed one spin to knit project. A pair of three ply handspun socks.
The roving was from a Blue Moon Sheep to Shoe kit purchased at Madrona last winter. It's pretty darn bright!
But, the colors cross the color wheel so I figured it would tone down once it was spun and plied. Spun as a fractal; it's a true sock weight 3 ply. To get the fractal effect, the top is split lengthwise into three sections, one bobbin is spun back and forth across the top to make long runs of color. The piece for the second bobbin is split lengthwise three more times and spun end to end to make medium runs of color. And, the piece for the third bobbin is split lengthwise into six very skinny strips and spun end to end to make color runs that quickly change.
2 oz.
316 yds.
Turned out to be just enough for a pair of socks (and I really mean "just" enough as there were two small butterflies left of about a yard each). The pattern is my basic sock recipe
Toe up
Afterthought heel
Graduated ribbing
Gauge 10st/1"
No, they are not a perfect match, can you see me twitching. ;) But, the roundness of the 3 ply makes them so comfortable to wear. Still have 6 oz of roving left so I'm going to spin the next batch as a navajo ply to see how that compares.

Okay, that's all for now.

A Tale of Two Shawls

This summer I knit two shawls. If you remember, one was the Indiski from the spring Piecework; more on that later.

But in July, one of my friends hit a rough patch and I wanted to make something bright and sunny to cheer her up. The night I heard her difficult news, I looked around for the perfect yarn and there it was. The Weld Angora/Merino handspun from Tactile.

The pattern was a natural, too. We used to joke about how we were the last two knitters on earth who hadn't knit a Flower Basket shawl--well now I've knit one and she has one so that's taken care of. During the knitting of it, I hummed every song with sunshine as part of the title or words. Looks like blue skies are heading her way now as she came through surgery with flying colors.
Flower Basket shawl by Evelyn Clark
Worked 13 repeats of the main pattern and a couple of extra rows in the edging so as to use up every bit of the yarn.
Size 4 needles.
Here it is being modeled on my wheel.

We have a much better model for the Indiski. All along I planned on making this for myself. But, from the moment the yarn arrived and every single time she saw me working on it, my little mom asked about who it was for, always reminding me how much she loved blue. Yeah, I like blue, too. But, the writing was on the wall, and I knew this one was fated to be a birthday prezzie for her.

Presenting, the Indiski.
ColourMart cashmere 3/28
Size 2.5mm needles.
1,056 yds
Rosemary's new nickel bluebird pin looks perfect with it.
And, here she is, the birthday girl. It probably wouldn't be nice of me to mention her age....but it ends in a 0. (*whispering* and starts with a nine)
Join me in wishing her many more returns of the day!

And, because I've been absent, it's only right to give you a peek into what I'll be knitting next.
This box arrived with some very pretty stamps.
Bohus!

A Good Day

We have a small flock of Pelicans spending the summer here. It's always a good day when they're spotted in flight or on the bay during my daily walk. And, to be able to get a photo to share with all of you was even better.

It was also a good day because I finished spinning and plying my first fleece. This was a Perendale purchased from Treenway back in 2007. It was so very white that I nicknamed it Snow.
I combed it with my Forsyth mini-combs during the summer of 2007.And, started spinning it on my Lendrum Saxony during the winter of 2008. Spinning continued during the winter of 2009 and finished up last week.
Total yardage is 2,923 yds of fingering wt yarn. When I started I wasn't sure if I wanted to use this yarn alone in a sweater, in which case I could double strand it if I needed a thicker yarn, or use it with another of my fleeces in a stranded Fair Isle type sweater. The latter is what I'll probably do with some of it.

It reminds me alot of Satakieli so perhaps I'll dye some in different colors to use for Latvian mittens.
All in all, I'm very happy to have finished the spinning part of this project. I loved every part, the washing, the combing, the spinning and plying, BUT staring at plain white yarn can be a tad b-o-r-i-n-g. I feel a spinning explosion of color, color, color in my future. Please, feel free to leave a comment with a link to your favorite Etsy vendor. (Lisa S, you'll be getting my order this week!)

But first, to finish up some knitting. The Indiski shawl will be completed this week and when I attach the edging I'm planning on taking pics for a Russian grafting tutorial. So check back.

Indiski Shawl

Progress has been made on the Indiski shawl since the last post.

After separately knitting both borders, sts were picked up along the straight edge of each one.
Want a closer look? First the sts are picked up (as opposed to picked up and knit, they're just placed on the needle) in the front loop of the chain selvedge edge. Placing them on the needle first lets you make doubly sure you've got the correct number and that they're all heading the same direction before they get stretched out in the process of knitting them.
Then, you knit the sts through the back loop which causes a little twist in them making a pretty join.

From the back you can see the twisted sts and the straight horizontal line is from the other loop of the chain selvedge edge.
The really important part when working the selvedge st on a piece like this, is that needs to be done very loosely; probably two or two and a half times looser than a normal edge st. This allows it to stretch along with the lace pattern during the blocking process.

After the inner border, the zig zag pattern, on each piece is finished, the miter is grafted together to join them together . Sorry no pics of this as it was an early morning maneuver without light enough for decent pics.
The inner triangle is then started, working from the sts on the left inner border and attaching them to the sts from the right inner border. There is a small error in stitch count in the pattern on the first row of the middle triangle but it's an easy fix.

For my peeve of the week, let me present my June Tactile club fiber. Isn't the color lovely. The solid is Osage Orange overdyed with Indigo making a lovely sage-y green and green aqua (not as blue as the photo shows). But...
the fiber content is Bamboo/Wool/Alpaca (49/28/23). Now, this is supposed to be a "luxury" fiber offering; you pay a premium for this fiber as opposed to the wool/wool blend club fiber. Never should bamboo, basically a rayon, be classified as a luxury fiber. Yes, there is alpaca in the mix but last month's offering was an alpaca blend and when I signed up, no where did it state that this was an all alpaca fiber club. Plus, I can get much nicer alpaca just outside of town. Last month we had to sign up again for the next three months and with this delivery of a pseudo-luxury fiber, I'm wondering now if I made a mistake. So, why does it matter? Just spin it up, you say? Well, bamboo and I are not friends and life's too short to work with fiber you don't like. If you'd like this fiber, just let me know, it's looking for a new home.

Wheel P*rn

Two and a half years ago when I got this wheel I took a few rather dark indoor pics and since that time haven't taken any others that show off it's real beauty. So, when I gave it a fresh coat of wax yesterday, I rectified that situation. Go put the kettle on and make yourself a cup of tea while these pics load.
Lovely Lendrum Saxony in Black Walnut.
Lovely wood grain on treadles.
Lovely wood grain on wheel and elegant footmen.
Side shot.
Shot from above. Yes, I know, the lawn is filled with weeds, but I'd rather spin than deal with them.
Long elegant spokes and little orifice hook.
More lovely wood grain on wheel.
Lazy kate and extra bobbins. My pic of the under table storage for the extra whorl didn't turn out.
Lennox spinning chair.
Ready to spin away the afternoon.

Now...With 10% More Whining

The blog. It's back open for business. It's come to my attention that some of the very popular blogs that get a bazillion comments feature a fair bit of whining. You know the ones--oh dear, I cast on the wrong number of sts. Twice. What to do, what to do. W-h-i-n-e.

Well, when we left off, I'd started working on one side of the border for the Indiski shawl. Just when I finished the last repeat, I looked down and noticed a mistake about 7 repeats back.

Oh, Woe is me! what shall I do!
RIP, of course. I've never quite understood this reluctance to rip out one's knitting. There was no deadline looming, the yarn is cashmere, and, after all, I like to knit. Just like that. It was knit back up and the second border done, too.
Once the inner borders are finished, the pieces will be joined at the center miter. The pattern calls for the yarn to be left attached at the corner and a new end started for the inner border with the top edging worked last. But because I'm working from a cone of yarn I decided to work it right away so I wouldn't have to estimate the amount of yarn to wind off and then deal with while knitting the middle section. It was either that or cut it and deal with another yarn end, which I'd rather not do.

In spinning news, I broke into the Blue Moon Sheep2Shoe kit I bought at Madrona. The color is called Dutch Canyon.
The colors seemed pretty bright, but alot of them cross the color wheel so I expected them to calm down once spun up. I tried Mel's trick of spinning a three ply fractal. For once I actually got a three ply sock weight yarn.
The singles were spun on the Joy and measured in at 57 WPI. It was plied on the Reeves. This is my new favorite handspun. Can't wait to knit with it.

Also, combed this delectable 2 oz of raw Peaches and Cream cria alpaca. It's a true gold color--think the color of a light Golden Retriever. And, seriously, it's as soft or softer than cashmere.Spun up into a heavy lace weight.

And, since this arrived while the blog was in limbo, I figured I'd post it now. The May/June Tactile club fiber. Club openings for the next three months are open until tomorrow. Just sayin', you might as well sign up. You know you want to.

Okay, that's it. Started out whining but it seemed to fade out at the end. I'll do better next week. Promise.