Spinning licorice.

Thanks to some awesome people on Ravelry I was able to get my greedy little fingers on more fiber. I got two individual batts of alpaca and one lovely merino/silk blend. Silk, people! I've given that one a little test spin, but I can't quite get the hang of it. There's tiny bits in it that just mess me up and it's not the long continuous hank of fiber that a newbie like myself seems to need.
The first skein of alpaca, however, is already finished:

Hanks make every yarn prettier. I don't know why.

Spinning alpaca is, for lack of a better word, different. It's sort of smoother, yet harder to pull out. And once that yarn rips, connecting it back to your spinning is hard! If spinning was a candy store (spinners will agree that it elicits similar feelings of giddyness), then what I've spun so far would be candy cotton, but alpace feels like licorice. It's a bit rubbery, stretchy, but only to a certain point, and a bit of an aquired taste. That's my analogy and I'm sticking with it. Does licorice shed though? Probably not.

Oh, I almost forgot, the second colourful fiber has been spun up for a while as well, I just never got around to plying it. I feel about plying the same way a lot of knitters seem to feel about sewing sweaters together. I'm quite happy to have my singles lieing around in the closet for ages if it means I don't have to deal with the horror of plying. I imagine it'll be less tedious whenever I get a bigger spindle.

Two balls, both strands broke halfway and reconnecting them seemed like an impossible chore at the time.

Dragon of Overconfidence

One of my favourite features on Ravelry is definitely the queue. I try to keep mine reasonable, meaning knittable within the average person’s lifespan and every now and then, I’ll find a pattern I thought I wanted to knit four months ago but don’t really fancy anymore. There’s another kind of pattern as well. These I usually put in my favourites because no way could I ever knit something like that / it’s not something I could wear on a day-to-day basis / it’s just a bit too difficult or expensive to get the actual pattern. Dragon of Happiness ticks all those boxes. Anyway, I’d been looking for a lace project for a while, just for variety’s sake. This month I posted a wishlist on the European RAK forum and the very next day, I received this pattern.

CRAZY!

I couldn’t even take a picture of the whole thing without climbing onto a chair. I realized this would be huge at the suggested needle size, so I opted for a finer gauge. Well, I didn’t even own anything smaller than 2.5 circulars, so I bought something else I’ve been pining after for a while. Really tiny needles. Namely HiyaHiyas from Tichiro’s shop. If you’re in Germany, I highly recommend her, the shipping was very fast and the postage is a lot more reasonable than for most online shops. I got the 80cm circs in 1.2 and 1.75. 1.75 for my pattern and 1.2 because I was curious. They are insane. I predict I’ll seriously hurt myself when I first knit with them. Still, looking very much forward to it.

Pattern: check. Supplies: check.

I’ve had this huge cone of thrift store yarn for a while now. It was only 3€ and is either acrylic or some sort of blend. Probably for machine knitting, because it’s really, really fine. I tried that test where you burn a bit of yarn to tell the fiber content, but it’s quite tricky. I might have an underdeveloped sense of smell, but that didn't give anything away… Anyway, it’s very reassuring to know that I definitely won’t run out of yarn for this shawl.

So, I’m all prepared for this massive project. It’s one of those things I don’t expect to finish quickly, I’m aiming for some time around Christmas. The first couple of rows went really fast, but I haven’t gotten to the tricky parts yet. Did I mention it's 23 pages of pattern. What the hell am I thinking? This will be fun.

More spinning.

I’ve finished my second handspun yarn a while back. I can’t remember where I bought the roving, it was a stand at the Ravelry meeting and if I had to guess, I’d say it’s probably 100% Merino. I am in no way an expert though, so the only thing I can say for sure is that it was very soft and the colors are fun. You learn something new with every project, this time it’s that with multicoloured fibers are probably best spun thickly if the individual colours are very different. It’d probably keep them a bit more separate and retain more of the effect that the roving has. Anyway:

It’s not nearly as pretty as the dyed roving was. =(

Confession: I didn’t bother washing or setting the yarn after plying. I probably should, but meh. It didn’t seem to make much difference the first time and it looks quite alright like this. Not sure yet what to do with it, but King of Confidence seems like a good project for beginner’s handspun. I’ll just have to try to spin more at about the same weight. I have no idea how to do that, here’s a comparison between my first two yarns:

It’s getting thinner at least, if not any more even.

Bad mittens, good mittens

Well, you knit and you learn. At any rate, you knit. 2011 seems to be my year of failing badly at a lot of things I try, but occasionally I also learn from my crafting blunders. Hopefully colorwork is one of those areas. The endpaper mitts were one of the first items in my queue after joining Ravelry, but mostly I was enamoured with the Bird and Vine spin-off. I'd done one pair of colorwork socks in the past so I felt confident I could do this.

My attempt was not entirely horrible, but the white yarn poking out everywhere bugged me too much to keep going. The tension was all over the place as well and I just can't handle long floats. If it's more than 2 stitches, I have to weave or it makes me seriously twitchy. Anyway, I wish I'd read the Knitting in Color blog more frequently, it might have given me a hint that such high contrast colors with a pattern that had long flots would not work particularly well. I opted for the plainer original pattern instead and it was mostly a breeze:

I did one more pattern repeat after the thump to make them longer.

Other than the lenght, my only modification was to not break up the pattern with a purl stitch on the non-thump side. The yarn is soft and lovely Omega by Lang Yarns. I'm in love with microfibre lately.

I still like the bird mitten pattern, but am pleased enough with the final outcome anyway. I'm not sure I'll keep the mittens, they don't stretch a lot as is the case with most colorwork and I don't like stiff fabric around my hands, it feels too restricting because as a knitter, I want to be able to move my fingers at all times! I might make these mittens part of a future RAK parcel, but can't quite part with them yet.

My first handspun.

Nearly six months after learning to spin, I finally finished the yarn I started at the German Ravelry meeting. I'm still amazed that it is so easy to make your own yarn, now to actually get good at it. Anyway, my first skein is all you would expect from a first attempt: messy, uneven and way too thick. It's a skein only a mother could love and I sure do.

The colors are actually a bit more vibrant in reality.

I've already started online window shopping for more roving and spindles. The second roving is already 1/3rd done and I have one more after that, so no actual buying until those are spun up. Unless I find a really good spindle...

Socks and socks.

Yep, just that. Plain, colorful socks. All top-down with 80 stitches on 2.0 needles, because I like my socks loose around the leg.

Made from Regia World Ball in Brazil. Already got a bit of wear.


Brand spanking new socks in Opal Rainforest. Next is either zebra or ladybug, methinks.


Ohh, a bit of variation with the arch-shaped socks.

I'm not sure what the yarn for the last pair is. It says Socken-Effekt-Strickgarn on the label and is the usual 72/25 mix, but there's no brand name. I got it as a gift and am pleasantly surprised. These aren't colors I would usually have bought but I adore the finished effect.

Mitts and hats - must still be winter

I’ve been knitting all kinds of stuff this winter, but the only things I seem to be able to finish and make fit properly are small items like socks and mittens. There are two that have gotten the most wear by far. One is a pair of fingerless gloves which were made of recycled yarn I got from a thrift store sweater. I’ve never used recycled yarn before, but I really liked the colour – and the price, obviously. So the thing went from this…

Cute enough sweater, but way too small.

…to a few of these…

Not sure about weight, it’s slightly thinner than sock yarn but knits up nicely on 2.0 needles.

… and finally these:

The 100% cotton makes them wear out a bit, but they are smooth and comfortable.

I love these. They are comfortable and extra long, so my fingers stay nice and toasty while bicycling. As you can see, they are a bit crinkly. But it is cotton and they spent most of their time like this:

Considering, they hold their shape pretty nicely.

Yep, definitely my favourite winter project. Eventually, I’ll have to knit a woolly one for really cold days. But for most days, they are warm enough without making me sweat.

Anyway, I was planning on making a matching hat, but I never really got around to it. Instead, in an act that the fashion police would probably not approve of, I’ve been wearing the mittens with this hat:

Photographing your head is even harder than your feet. Who would have thought.

It’s a slightly modified Lue à la Oleana made from Schoppel Turandot. Ahhh, Turandot… it’s an interesting ribbon yarn and comes in a lot of vibrant colours, but the two of us just didn’t get along. After this hat, I gave the rest of my stash away. I think it would be a great yarn for bags or decorative items. Or those really lacy, lofty summer pullovers. So those are my favourite knits, mittens from a sweater that no one wanted and a hat from a yarn I didn’t want.

Oh, before I forget, I did make one more thing from Turandot:

Reptiles need warm places.

It’s an adorable free pattern by Mochimochi Land, which I’m a big fan of. Amigurumi is one of the most fascinating facets of knitting to me, but I just do not have the patient for all the fiddly bits. So while my baby gator doesn’t have any knitted companions, there’s lots of prey on the shelfes in the jungle:

“I am gator, hear me roar!“

Although he is not very good at choosing his opponents wisely…

“You did what to littly Jimmy?”

I think what we can learn from this knit is that a) reptiles are awesome and cuddly, and b) I apparently have a mental age of nine. Which is also often awesome.