FOs

There are two finished objects for the end of July, the Gansey sweater and the handspun Polkagris.  Starting with the kerchief, I pulled some photos from a previous post (May 2013) to show how the yarns were created.  They sat in the stash for five years waiting for the perfect project.  Shortly before Grey Wolf in June, an email arrived from KDD with a pattern for newsletter subscribers.  It did not take long to choose yarns from my stash for the project.

Colorful wool roving and wool batts with some cotton yarn are pulled together.

The fibers are added to the bowl on the scale for weighing.  Joanne and I made 3-ounce batts.
Fibers used in both batts:  wool, silk, mohair locks, silk noils, sari silk, and cotton.

The fibers can be blended a little or a lot using the drum carder.  It is ready to spin!

The singles are plied with thread or yarn.  This was plied with a thin textured yarn.
This skein weighed 3.7-ounces after plying.  The white skein weighed 3.8-ounces.  Each skein was 200+ yards.
I should have enough left from both skeins for a small project.

The Polkagris kerchief by Kate Davies was the perfect project for the special skeins of yarn.
The shape of the kerchief fits nicely over the shoulders

The Gansey sweater was a rewarding project to knit.  It is a simple, wool sweater with traditional shape and style with extra ease added for comfort.  It will be a good piece for layering when it gets cold.  I have it on right now, as we are experiencing a cold front before the heat and humidity return.  

Before the knitting, I did my homework by looking through my personal library and studying photos of the design elements of traditional garments.  Body  measurements and measurements from other garments along with choosing yarn and swatching are so important.  One of my biggest take-aways from the experience was that less is more.  I planned for fancier textures at the top, but the simple, 2 +1 stitch repeat over four rows fit so beautifully into the design.  

Mary is just about finished with her sweater and soon we (Kathryn, Mary, and I) will have to take photos of our finished projects together.  

Garter stitch at the neck, cuffs and hem. Ridged ribbing worked well for the stitch counts for the body and sleeves.  

A bit of shaping on either side of the front neck and three-needle bind off at the shoulders.  The bind off was worked on the right side of the work and the purl ridge flows into the texture stitches nicely.

The two-stitch faux seam runs on either side from the hem, around the underarm gusset, and the to the  cuff.

Spinning and the bubble

As of yesterday I can see above the jiggly nitrous oxide bubble in my eye.  because it moves a LOT.  The good thing is that I have vision for which I am grateful.  The bubble is disappearing and according to the opthamologist the bubble should be gone within a week.  With my head down I can see the whole bubble and a little bit around it.  It has a dark perimeter that fades to the magnified center, which is akin to looking through water.  Looking at my computer screen I can see what I am typing!  A small thing but it is really huge to me.

During the past week I have been walking a bit more each day and the one activity that keeps my hands busy is spinning and carding wool.  Between the spindle and the wheels there has quite a bit of progress made in the woolly stash-down.

Before I took the Jacob/silk noil  off Reginald's bobbin I checked to see if I wanted to ply the single or leave the yarn as a single.  I opted to leave the yarn as a single.  

Stella and some Romney wool I bought last year at Shepherd's Harvest.  I am hand carding the wool into rolags and pick out the VM (veggie matter) as I spin.

Left to right:  Jacob/silk noil continuous single, natural gray and natural light brown spindle spun Shetland, Stella with dark brown Romney, colorful Cormo/silk noil spindle spun 2-ply, Cormo/silk noil called Dark Side of the Moon from Riverwinds Farm.  I ended up not plying the latter with Reginald and used Louie (my Louet S10) instead with the jumbo bobbin and fl yer.  

 In addition to spinning, carding was less than pleasant endeavor, until I realized that I needed clamps and a nail to make the experience easier.  When I purchased my Wild Carder it did not come with instructions.  I had a general idea of how it worked because Joanne loaned me one of her carders when I lived in Texas.  I looked online when I brought the carder home and  did not find much information or videos on the subject.  I mentioned my experience to Joanne in a recent conversation and she helped me find the specification sheet and assembly instructions online.  I was having difficulty because the drums were too close together.  Joanne tried to talk me through the adjustments without much success.  She mentioned the clamps and a nail. To make a long story short, she contacted her supplier and I have clamps and a nail en route.  Now that I have the information about how to adjust the settings the carding experience will be better.  I sent each batt through the carder twice and picked out any loose or short bits.  I look forward to spinning this lovely wool!

Using the Wild Carder to make batts of Jacob wool.  Natural black, dark gray, and medium gray is finished.

Light gray and white yet to card.