Skip to main content

Spinning for a hat and a shawl

I didn't do a lot of spinning during the break, partly because I was working monomaniacally on Bitterroot, partly because I was having some issues with Rosie the Elephant. Near the beginning of the week, when the weather was warming up, she started to moan like a haunted house. This usually started about 20 minutes after I started spinning. I also noticed treadelling was harder than usual. I discovered that the metal parts at the back of the wheel were heating up. Add to this that the fibre I'm using is not well prepared and there was not much incentive to spin.

A note on the fibre: It was dyed by the very talented Stranded in Oz and is two lots of her fibre club, a light blue merino and a dark blue alpaca and a whole lot of Angelina. It was carded by me and that's where the issues are coming from, the original fibre was wonderfully prepared.

I had a really good look at the problem yesterday and identified where it was rubbing and have (pretty much) fixed it, it turned out I just had to adjust one of the rods at the back. Now spinning is flowing again for me, and yesterday I finished the singles.

I was on such a roll that I plied it immediately and got this:

It's almost impossible to see in the photos, but the Angelina gives the fairly matt yarn wonderful glints of light and movement when it is in the light.

This is 205 meters / 150 grams of what was a sport weight before I washed it, but is now probably a double knit weight. I'm going to make Gudren Johnson's Norie hat. I'm a little under yardage, but the majority of people seem to leave of the final repeat, so, if necessary I will do that. Then I'm going to spin up the rest of the fibre lace weight and make the Homin shawl from her Shetland Trader book. I've got 90 grams of fibre left and need 435 metres, which should be fine (no pun intended) as long as I spin it thin. I'm a little nervous about getting yardage, but I accidentally managed more than that when I spun the rainbow yarn on my Turkish spindle, and that time I was aiming for sock weight. Wish me luck.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Geogradiant MKAL Part 1 - that was unexpected (spoilers)

Stephen West released the first MKAL clue on Thursday night. I started knitting it without looking at spoilers. When I got up on Friday he had sent through an "alternative" clue one. I then went and had a look at the spoiler thread to try to work out what was going on. Which was that some people thought the pattern looked like a "German hate symbol". I knit on anyway, since I was half-way through. Then he took down the original clue, replacing it with a mitred square in garter stitch. The Ravelry forums and Instagram are a complete shit-show, even though Rav is being moderated. It's been a bit disheartening, having something that is usually quite light and fun weighed down with all this. I admire Stephen's quick and sensitive response to this drama. I also feel that anything can look like anything if you squint. To me this looks like a Celtic knot. I think mine is pretty, and I'll knit on through all crises. 

Linky Wednesday - the one with the drama

The drama about the Stephen West MKAL  continues, and I can't be bothered with it. It's meant to be a fun, interesting, communal knit and and that's not what this year has turned in to. Stephen has done his best in a difficult situation, but I'm just not feeling it. Meanwhile, Israel is at war, and we (as a country) are going to vote "no" on a referendum that asks for basic consideration for Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders.  So yeah, lots of turmoil here. It's very tiring. I'm knitting a sock and considering what happens next.  Luckily the reading was dramatic in a good way. I'm reading a NetGalley review copy of Last Summer at the Lake House and it's great.  Super dramatic family drama about three sisters who loose their father unexpectedly and then find out that the family has secrets. I 've nearly finished it and I don't know what I'm going  to read next. I've got a bit of a break between review books, so maybe Sta

Mussleburgh musings

I made a Mussleburgh hat earlier in the year, and even though I thought I was following the directions exactly it did not come out quite right.  It was a little bit loose. My head is 51 cm, my gauge was 7 stitches, so according to the pattern I knit the right size. It's also a little bit shorter than I would like it. Too long for a beanie, too short for a good turn-up. I couldn't work out why. I still wore it, but it was not quite right. When I decided to knit one for Elise I knew I wanted to make it longer, and tighter. After I finished Elise's (with 24 fewer stitches) I realised something about mine: Now, this is a knit tube. I know how to knit tubes. When I make sleeves or socks, they don't balloon out in the middle. So I decided to reblock it. The instructions actually specifically say to fold it inside each other after blocking, but I probably folded it and dried it on my head, because that's how I block my hats. Not this time: Now it's longer and thinner