Making progress!

January brings the snow;
Makes our feet and fingers glow.
Sara Coleridge

16.01.2020 Today is sunny, -4 degrees F, and feels like -15 

January has been a productive month thus far.  The fabric I was weaving at the shop is now off the loom, washed, and steamed.  Checking the pattern/recipe for the Sarah-Dippity skirt by Sarah Swett, I  am pleased to know the fabric will work well for the project.

The fabric is 12-inches wide and 2.72 yards long

My palette of colors is getting larger.  Each color is a rolag's worth and just enough for a sampling.

Carding and spinning a palette of colors for a small weaving project.  Dyed wool from Kerry Woollen Mill

Progress is being made in the room by organizing the WIPs, UFOs, stitching, weaving, and knitting goods so things are easier to find.  Storing unspun fiber in tubs is the best solution because I can see the fiber through the translucent tub.  The downside is the tubs take up quite a bit of space in the small room.  The closet is where I store my art supplies, it is well-organized and out of sight until I need something.  The fiber and everything that goes with it takes up a lot of room and is distracting when I sit at the drafting table or the computer.  I have confidence that things will be much better soon.  No photos yet!

Meanwhile, there are plenty of small projects to keep me busy when I want to do some social knitting.

Boot cuffs are quick-to-knit projects and they are nice and warm.

I finally pulled out the 21-colors of Blue Sky Woolstock mini-skeins for a project, which will most likely be a hat.

Sample knitting for an upcoming class

One of my favorite sweaters is Aranmor by Alice Starmore.  Knitted in 2011, it was a joyful knitting project not only for the lovely cables and texture stitching, but the yarn was (and still is) just beautiful.  Rowan Scottish Tweed Aran, has been discontinued since I was in the finishing stage of my project.  I calculated the yardage for my sweater (I thought correctly) but ran out of yarn at the collar.  Thankfully, an online shop had three skeins of shade 025, which I bought even though only one skein was needed.  Since finishing the sweater, it became my go-to travel sweater and the only thing about it that irked me was the collar.  The decorative twisted stitch section after the ribbing rides up.  Not a terrible thing to happen, but I am not above changing neckbands and collars on sweaters multiple times.  It was not difficult to find the yarn end and then frog back to the ribbing.  Adding a turning ridge would fix the issue.  One row, not enough...two rows, meh...three rows, it will work.  

Knitting the twisted stitch section on the wrong side of the collar, the purl rows above the ribbing create a fold.

Stay warm!

School is in session

School is in session and it's time to finish a project, add a class, and experiment.  The latest FO is my handspun vest made with the Mocha Dream roving from Ewespun Fiber Mill.  The fiber, ⅓ each Romeldale wool, alpaca, and camel down, was a dream to spin.  I ended up with 478 yards of two-ply yarn, which was more than enough for the vest.  The pattern called for a size US 9/5.5 mm knitting needle and after knitting a swatch I got the gauge I needed with a US 7/4.5 mm needle.  The pattern is from Folk Style, a book I've had in my library for some time.  The Grand Tour Waistcoat, designed by Di Gilpin was the perfect choice. There are a few Ravelry projects using the pattern without the intarsia motif.  The finished vest looks good with or without the swirls.  I didn't mind battling the bobbins, as intarsia is one of my favorite knitting techniques.

There's nothing better than a finished project.  The latest FO is a vest, knitted using spindle-spun yarn, using the intarsia knitting technique.  (I have an upcoming class for teaching the intarsia technique at Anoka Fiber Works.)   Intarsia, aka picture knitting, was popular when I picked up the needles in the early 1980s and I dove in relatively quickly as a fearless young knitter.  Thankfully the bobbins of varying sizes and shapes are still in the toolbox.

There wasn't a plan for the yarn in the beginning, as I just wanted to spin the beautiful roving from Deb Peterson, proprietor and shepherdess of Ewespun Fiber Mill at Old Man Wool Farm.  Deb premiered the roving at Shepherd's Harvest Festival over Mother's Day weekend.  The fiber blend is ⅓ Romeldale sheep's wool (from Deb's flock), ⅓ alpaca (also locally sourced), and ⅓ camel down.  The process of spinning was a joy and the natural colors blended into a beautiful variegated two-ply yarn with z-twist singles and s-twist ply.  I am thankful to have purchased that third ball because the 478 yards were enough for a larger project.

Fortunately, after many years of knitting and spinning, I have an ample library of knitting and fiber-related books.  Folk Style had the perfect pattern, Grand Tour Waistcoat designed by Di Gilpin.  Figuring that

Mocha Dream spy with the IST oak burl spindle.  The perfect tool for the project.

Mary snapped a photo for me.  There are three cables in the middle of the top motif.  

The upper fronts sport some seed stitch texture and cables.

A new class on the schedule at Anoka Fiber Works is for a Dorset "Cartwheel" Button.  Janie Crow taught our knitting group how to make them while in Shetland.  It was fun and we used the wool from our projects.  I thought it was time to practice and found the buttons easy and fun to make.  

The first three buttons turned into eleven buttons and counting.

The fall colors have been delayed by the abundance of rain this year.  I love the pops of color against the sidewalk concrete and grass.

I found a skein of fractal-spun Malabrigo Nube from a spindle spinning class I taught a few years ago.  The colors look like the leaves on the sidewalk (minus the grass).  I don't know what it will be, but I'm knitting a gauge swatch to try it out and see how it knits up.

Weaving Wednesday is a good time to experiment a "painted" warp.  I had some fabric markers, so I went small scale on a small loom to try it out.  No drips!  If I like doing this, I'll invest in some good quality fabric paint.  The blue and white fabric in the top left corner of the photo is Fey's kitchen towel.  She was very happy to finish them!

I finally used the skein of Vice yarn (Blurred Lines) that has been waiting patiently in the stash.  I think it would make a nice hat.  At the time I took the photo (yes, I fixed the position of the dowel to go up and over the front beam) there really wasn't a weft yarn I thought looked good with the colors, so I went with a neutral color.  As of this writing, it's coming along nicely.

Sweater weather is here!

It is that time of year again, which makes me happy.  The woollies are coming out of the cedar chest and placed within easy reach.  Since the last post I've been working on Plans B, C, and D for the twill fabric because the width is just shy of what I need for a skirt.

The two pieces of fabric came off the Cricket loom and can be used together for a top or separate for scarves.  The jury's still out on that.  Yesterday, the fabric for the sides of the cotton top came off the Cricket and I am very happy with the result.  The loom was warped with 158-inches of hemp, cotton, and cotton/linen and the weft  was a textured cotton throughout.  All the yarns were from my stash and originally intended for sweaters.  Combining the everything into one project is a great way to use up that yarn and the colors worked well together.  There are a couple of pretty cotton skeins that I will use as part of the weft for the center and back panels.  The Pontunic is from Weave Knit Wear, by Judith Shangold.

For the warp, the thinnest yarn is hemp, textured white and the blue are cotton, and the green is cotton/linen.  The weft is a textured brown cotton.  I love the color and texture of everything together.  Everything will soften up nicely with washing.  

There are two knitting projects in the works (amongst other WIPs and UFOs) for holiday knitting.  One is a sweater for Ben, a classic Mary Maxim cardigan with a moose on it.  Classic Alafoss Lopi is my yarn of choice and it will be nice and warm.  A friend and I took a drive to Depth of Field in Minneapolis to find the yarn, as it isn't easy to find in most of this area's yarn shops.  Woolly wool is considered scratchy or "old" these days.  Yes, I had a local yarn shop clerk use physical quotation marks while saying old when she referred to the yarn about which I'd inquired.  'Tis a shame some folks this that about some wools.  I love Icelandic wool for its warm loftiness.  The more I wash my garments made with it, the better they look and feel.  Washing makes the yarn bloom and spaces are filled in with fibers creating a woolly halo on the fabric's surface.  The warmth of the knitted fabric is warm without heaviness and often I wear a sweater instead of a jacket for that reason.

14.12.2016 Oh my, time certainly has flown by!  I had a commissioned project to knit and it set my other projects on hold for a bit.  I'm back to working on two gifts for Jim and Ben's sweater.

In the meantime...the article in Spin-Off, Winter 2017 issue came in the mail and we were very happy to see ourselves in the magazine on pages 90 and 91!