Knitting 2011

Scarf for Betsy (choir director)

Yarn: Stash Yarn

Pattern: Garter Stitch

Diamond Sparkle Socks

Yarn: Speshul Snowflakes Yarn Club Dec 2010 Mulled Wine on Sparkle Feet

Pattern: Toe Up with Diamond Pattern

Blue Diamond Socks

Yarn: Knit One Crochet Two Sock in Denim

Pattern: Toe Up with all over diamond pattern

Blue Skirt

Yarn: New Lanark Mills Donegal Silk Tweed DK in Blue Heather

Pattern: Olive Skirt by Veronik Avery

Prayer Flag Batt Hat

Yarn: Handspun on miniBosworth from AbbyBatts Prayer Flag 2 and 3 ply

Pattern: Top down hat

Large Cable Cowl

Yarn: Stash Icelandic

Pattern: September Mystery 220:  Quick Cabled Cowl by Gabrielle O’Leary

Water Bottle Holder

Yarn: Autumn House Farm Finnegan’s Rainbow

Pattern: September Mystery 220: Hempathy H20 Tote by Leanne Brown

Moz’s Socks

Yarn: Sockina Cotton in blue colorway

Pattern: Toe Up Socks using Chrissy Gardiner and Cat Bordhi’s worksheets in twisted rib

Nicky’s Dishcloths

Yarn: Lily’s Sugar n’ Cream in cotton

Pattern: Ballband Dishcloth from Mason and Dixon Book 1

Dad’s Cardigan

Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Superwash Wool

Pattern: Top Down Raglan based on Barbara Walker’s with major adjustments

And from the front:

Tour de Fleece 2011 Round Up

Ooof. I think I am spun out for a while.

Top LH corner: Jacob from Marta – gold batts, mid dark singles, white batts, white yarn 3ply and 2 ply
Top RH: Mad Colors: Wild Side
Middle L: Fabulous Fibers: Summit
Middle: Drying Shetland fleeces
Bottom L + Middle: Drachenwolle
Bottom R: Dad’s cardigan

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If you remember I had goals. So how did I do?

Goal 1: Prepare lots of Jacob. I got about 100 g carded and a further 20 g waiting for the carder. Still have a long way to go before it is all finished.

Goal 2: Wash fleeces. Thanks to members of Team Suck Less and the FOAY group on Ravelry, I found out that my water is not hot enough to dissolve lanolin. So I had to change my methods and rewash the first few lots. Despite that I am only 3.5 mesh bags away from finishing the second fleece! For this fleece I got fancy and sorted out the fiber into different categories:

Where:
A) Least compacted and long clear locks
B) Back like A but compacted
C) Sides are slightly dirty and not as soft as A or B
D) End of legs – very compacted and not soft
E) Worst, as in dirtiest, locks. Fleece was skirted which means the really nasty bits were already removed.

Goal 3: Spin on my Trindle every day. I span every day but not always on my Trindle. I did, however, spin all the fiber I intended for the Trindle.

Goal 4: Knit Dad’s cardigan. Unfortunately, the last few days have been too hot too knit a thick cardigan but before the heat dome arrived I finished the left sleeve and I’m about a third into the right sleeve.

So all in all tour de fleece 2011 was a success.

TDF Week 2

Top: Finished the left sleeve of Dad’s cardigan
Color skeins: Mad Colors wild side chain plied. Well one was chained and then plied because I couldn’t chain fast enough. The singles were spun on Habetrot’s support spindle, plying on Bosworth mini.
Middle: Windswept Pippit moorit Shetland drying
White fibre and yarn: Marta Jacob fleece in batts and span as two ply (smaller skein) and three ply on Saacht Hi-lo Spindle

Tour De Fleece Day 1

Adventures with Fleece

When to the Tour de France takes place, spinners of the fiber kind join in with a Tour de Fleece. The idea is to set hand spinning goals to achieve while watching the cyclists get hot and sweaty. I have joined too many goals but it should be fun trying:

Goal 1:

Jacob Fleece - Washed

Process as much of the Jacob as possible. It is all washed but I have about a pound of a half that needs flicking and carding.

Goal 2:

Maryland 398

Windswept Pippit

Wash two Shetland Fleeces and comb and spin a sample of each.

Goal 3:
Spin on my Trindle every day and while at it, spin enough Fabulous Fibers Summit for making two swatches; regular 3 ply and Navajo 3 ply.

BFL Summit from Fabulous Fibers

Goal 4:

Knit on Dad’s cardigan as much as possible. It would be nice to be finished when I visit in August.

Swatch for Dad's Cardigan

So I joined four teams on Ravelry as part of the TDF as my new Avatar shows:

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copyright ©2011 cdavies

Week 11: Texture

A close up photo of the baby blanket I am current knitting.

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Copyright © 2011 cgadavies. All rights reserved.

Knitting 2010

In 2010 I attended the UK knit camp in Stirling University and was lucky enough to have classes with Lucy Neatby, Jared Flood and MaryJane Mucklestone.  I visited New Lanark Mills, went on a boat on Loch Katrine and toured the Famous Grouse distillery.   I went to Maryland Sheep and Wool and I taught classes at Knitter’s Day Out. I took a beginning [wheel] spinning class at the Mannings and bought my first fleece.  Needless to say I bought yarn and fiber while at these events. Oh I also did some knitting too.

I started the year knitting Mum a pair of mittens using Anna Zilbourg’s Turkish stitches:

For the Winter Olympic Challenge I knitted a Baby Surprise Jacket:

At the beginning of March I finished my top down adaption of Vivian:

And later on that month I started the first project knitted from my own hand -spun and completed it with no yarn to spare in May:

I knit Mum a fun pair of socks so she could be comfortable and think about the garden at the same time:

I knit a Baktus for Lisa:

I practiced some Orenburg lace making samplers:

For my guild I tried double knitting with two colors and made a washcloth with a heart which I gave to my friends Jessica and Robert:

I also knitted two pairs of hunter’s mittens (or should that be Huntress’s). The first pair were part of a workshop at my local LYS and I made them delibrately too big for me. I then decided my hands were cold and I was bored of this so I made myself a pair. Here is one of the first pair:

I knit myself EZ Green Sweater in purple Ultra Alpaca:

For a colleague at work I knitted a baby jacket in the same yarn with the same buttons as the BSJ:

I completed the second project from my hand-spun. This time a gorgeous Abbybatt became a gorgeous scarf:

Finally I have four pairs of socks without photos.

• Our guild had a knitasockalong and in November I finally finished knitting my Fiesta Feet.
• I knit myself a pair of “in your garden socks”.
• I knit Mum a pair of socks based on conifer trees.
• I knitted my brother (size 13 US feet) a pair of socks in cotton. The yarn was self-stripping and my proudest moment came when my sister-in-law commented that the stripes on each socks matched.

I am vaguely impressed as that means I completed sixteen different projects in 2010 or 23 if you count each mitten, sock and Orenberg lace sampler!

FO Friday: First Handspun Knitted Project

Shell Scarf

 

Project Details

Pattern: Adapted from Gail Tanquary’s Fan Shawl.
Yarn: Hand spun
Fiber: Susan’s Kitchen FiberArts BFL Groovy
Needles: US 6/4.00 mm
Started: March 18 2010
Finished: October 20 2010 if you count blocking

Comments

I finished knitting my Shell Shawl back in May, but did not have the space to block it as the spare bed was covered with boxes. Even though the boxes have been gone from the bed for a while, I only found the time to block it last week.

I purchased the fiber at Sock Summit last year directly after Abby’s intro to spinning class.  After all she had said to buy something that you love and want to spin.   I spun the fiber with both a Saacht Hi-lo and a Wildcraft Chillis spindle as they have the same weight.  The singles were chain plied to maintain the colors.

Shell Close Up

 

The shell patterns were adapted from Gail Tanquary’s Fan Shawl.

FO: In Your Garden Socks

When I knit the last pair of socks for Mum she asked for seven more pairs.

While she may have been joking about the number, if I do one pair at time, it is a reachable target.

These are her second pair.

Once again Ray at Knitivity came up with the perfect yarn for some one who does not want colored socks (Mum) to be knitted by some one who cannot be without color (me).  Patina looks exactly as you expect.  It made me think of drystone walls and old English churches.

At the same time, Mum’s health means that she is unable to garden as much as she would like.  Gardening is something of a spring, summer, early fall addiction for both of us.  Probably more for her as I have lots of other interests too.

So I knitted these socks with all of this in mind.

I started with a Turkish cast-on; using the same idea that I did with her mittens which came from Anna Zilboorg’s Fancy Feet book.  Mum has long toes, so this should really help.

The foot pattern represents flowers/grass in the garden.  It is a simple purl/knit stitch that I made up based off the Fleur de Lys pattern on the palm of her mitten.

Gusset increases were centered around the top of the foot as seen in Cat Bordhi’s first Footprints book.  I think it was upstream, but since reading that book, I have put gusset increases wherever and whenever it looks right!

The ankle is a trellis; totally plagiarized from Lucy Neatby’s Fiesta Foot but worked up the heel in one color. Really called honeycomb but could be considered a trellis.

The leg is based off basket weave, in this sock it is representing a stonewall protecting both the garden and the sock wearer from deer nibbling the flowers and toes.

The idea of story socks was totally lifted from Tsarina, after seeing her Abbey Tsock and accompanying story.

Details

Pattern: In your garden socks

Toe Up Sock with Turkish Cast On and Upstream Gussets

Yarn: Down Home Art Yarn Socks by Knitivity. Colorway: Patina

Needles: US 2/2.75 mm

Started: April 1st 2010; Finished: May 22nd 2010 (approx).

Spinning: Knitting with My Handspun

Coopworth Dark Gray Swatch

I even span the fiber to order!  I wanted to see if I could make something worsted weight and I could.

Obligatory Handspun with Dime Photo

Details

Spinning

Spindle: Ashford Student (70 g)

Fiber: Louet Coopworth Dark Gray

Date of Spinning: January 2010

Swatch

Needles: US 9/5.5 mm

Size: 13 stitches x ~20 rows

Date  of Swatch: March 2010

Pattern

Cast on 13 stitches

Work 2 ridges garter stitch

Stockinette for 15 rows with sl, kl and k1, p1 at start and end of each row respectively.

Work 2 ridges garter stitch

Bind off