I’ve been expirementing lately with what I can only describe as re-spinning. I have quite a lot of a green/blue 4ply wool of forgotten designer that I bought many moons ago to knit a sweater, or something out of. I’ve since changed my mind about the sweater, or whatever it was, and now I have a bunch of this yarn. Last year I took some of this yarn and pulled it apart to have just a two ply and I knit a lace scarf out of it. I’ve worn this scarf all this past winter, and perhaps one day when I have an archive of past projects, and I’ve washed it, I’ll show it off. This past week I came across this yarn again, and decided to try to de-ply the rest of it into a 2ply that perhaps I could do more with. So, I attatched my swift to a stool, and moved it near my spinning wheel. Then I put the hank of yarn on the swift, tied the end of the yarn to the leader on the bobbin, and proceded to de-ply by spinning the wheel clockwise ( since it was plied counter-clockwise ). You need to keep an eye on the twist, making sure that you keep count of how many times you treadle before feeding it in to the bobbin. I was counting 3 treadles and feeding the yarn in on the third. Once I finished the hank, I kept the yarn on the bobbin on the wheel, and pulled the yarn back out through the orfice. From this point the yarn would come apart easily, so I wraped two singles around the swift, and kept the other two together and started a ball ( another swift would have been helpful here, but not having one, I had to make do). This is the boring, and/or aggrevating part. Just keep pulling the yarn off of the bobbin, splitting it apart, and wrapping two around the swift and the other two around in a ball. Once that is over and done with, you can take what is on the swift and re-ply it back onto the bobbin, then re-ply from the ball et voila! Twice as much yarn!

Yeah, I must be nuts. It’s a lot of trouble to go through, but it makes a decent sock yarn!

They have a cute fancy top. I think I’m going to use it for another sock for me. This is the Petticoat Sock from Weekend Knitting. I’m knitting these for my lil sis in exchange for these:

Which are sooo very comfy! She apparently had a spare pair and after trying on the cabled sock made the offer to trade spare shoes for socks. Sounded lake a bargain to me!

Well, I’ve managed to finish knitting something, and write about it in the same month! These socks are soooo very comfy! I’ve worn them once, you can probably see in the photo the fuzzy worn spot that my clogs put there.

I started this sock as an expirement. I wanted to learn how a toe-up sock worked, and I wanted to play with the yarn to see how it knit. So I started with Wendy’s directions for the toe, and cast 30 sts. After I had the toe finished I realized that if I kept going the sock was going to be too narrow. So I worked a few rounds in Stst, increasing on either side of the toe on the needles that hold the stitches for the foot bottom, until I had 40 sts for the foot bottom. Then I started the cable pattern, and upon trying them on after a few cable twists, right about where the ball of my foot ended, I noticed that I was going to need to decrease some, or the sock would be too wide. So I worked decreases on the bottom of the foot, like I did with the increases, until there were 34sts on the bottom. During the foot, I kept all 30 instep stitches on one needle, and the stitches for the bottom of the foot on two needles. After I finished the heel, I realized that if I wanted to be able to carry the cabled pattern all the way around the leg, I was going to need to increase again. So I made increases everyother round this time, until there were 40 stitches again on the two back needles, and from there was able to work the leg with the cable pattern repeats all the way around until I felt the sock was long enough. Now, I wanted to have a ribbed cuff, and I knew that a regular bind off wouldn’t be stretchy, so I searched, and swatched and expiremented with just about every stretchy bind off out there, and could not for the life of me find one that I was happy with. So out of frustration I knit a ribbed cuff separatly and grafted it on. I looks allright, I’m happy with it, but if anyone out there knits these socks and does something different that works for them, I would love to see it! Anyway, this is my pattern that fits a foot of about a size 6 or so. I would suggest for wider/skinnier feet, to make more increases/ decreases along the sides on the bottom 2 needles. For making the leg wider, instead of trying to fit another pattern repeat in there, I would just ad a stitch inbetween each of the 2 stitch rib stitches.
Cabled Sock

Yarn: My own handspun, Alpaca and BFL blend, 2-ply
Needles: US 0 ( 2mm ) DPNs
Gauge: 8 sts=1inch

Pattern:

Co 30 stitches using any provisional cast on, and follow directions found here for the toe.

After the toe, K 1 round, K across instep stitches, K1, M1 ( or whatever increase you prefer ), K to end of needle #2. K to 2 sts away from end of needle #3, K1, M1, K1. Repeat every round until there are 20 sts on needle #2 and 20 sts on needle #3.
K 1 round.

Start cable pattern on the instep sts, K across the 40 foot bottm sts.

Once you have worked through the 4th cable pattern repeat start decreases. With needle #2, after just finishing the instep sts, K1, SSK, K to end of needle #2. K across needle #3 to 3 sts from the end, K2TOG, K1. Work instep, K through needles #2 and #3. Next round work decreases again. Repeat until there are 17 sts on both needles #2 and #3.

Continue to knit in pattern ( cable pattern on instep, K across #2 and #3 ) until about 2 inches away from heel.

Work short row heel on the 34 sts of needles #2 and #3. ( I used Wendy’s short row directions here too. It’s just like the toe. )

After finishing the heel, divide the stitches as before ( 30 on #1, 17 o #2 and #3 ). Now, work the same as you were before the heel, except making increases on needles #2 and #3 every round until there are 20 sts each on #2 and #3.

Now you can start the cable pattern all the way around the leg, for as long as you like. Finish with a ribbed cuff, or whatever suits you!

Hope that this wasn’t too confusing. It’s my first time attempting to write out a pattern from my pithy notes. If you have any questions, please email me! (amy@hankypankyblog.net, I know, no button for that yet. I’ll get that as well as comments up someday!) I’ll be happy to help!

I know, it’s been while, but with the moving and the job hunting and the narcoleptic laptop, it’s a wonder that I get anything else done!

So, last time I promised pictures, and here they are! First up we have the BLF/Alpaca blend that I’ve been spinning.

I LOVE this stuff! It’s sooo soft and it has so many colors in it. It goes with just about everything in my wardrobe. Here it is closer.

This yarn knits up beautifully! I’m getting about 7-8 stitches per inch on US 0’s. I really would like to knit a sweater or cardigan out of this, but for more instant gratification I started some cabled socks.

These are a toe up/top down sock pattern that I kinda made up on the fly. I say that it is also top down because I could not, for the life of me, find a suitable stretchy bind off for the ribbed cuff that I was happy with. I don’t know if it was just the yarn ( alpaca dosen’t really have any bounce to it) or if I am just that anal, but I must have tried about 5-6 different methods and nothing was stretchy enough. So I knit the cuff separate, and kitchner stitched it on! There is a bit of a seam showing where I think I pulled the yarn too tight. Can you tell?

I wrote down some notes as I worked the first sock ( mainly so that I could remember what I did for the second sock), and perhaps I can decode them from my chicken scratch enough to post a pattern!

I have also knit a pair of Hubby socks!

He loves them! It’s the first wool anything that he hasen’t been allergic too. I knit these out of the corridale that I spun awhile back using the Classic Sock pattern from Nancy Bush’s Folk Socks. Speaking of Folk Socks, I finished the Norwegian Stocking some time ago, and never posted a picture of the finished pair, so here they are!

*sigh* Well, that’s about it for now. Finished cabled socks and a pattern to be looked forward to next time, and perhaps I’ll finish that noro scarf that’s been following me around! But I wouldn’t count on it.

I know, I’ve been slacking on the posting, but we’ve got quite a lot going on right now. We were out of town last week, in Johnson City, TN, where my husband interviewed for, and was offered a new job! So, in a couple of months we will be packing up our four kitties and moving to TN. Which I think is wonderful. It’s in the mountains, close to Asheville, NC, where I lived for a couple of years, and absolutly loved it! While we were in TN we stopped by Silver Thunder Alpacas, where we met Chuck and Nancy and their beautiful alpacas. Chuck and Nancy are wonderful, and sooo nice! I’m so glad that we were able to go to their farm and meet them. My husband and I hope to be able to have some alpaca of our own one day, and after talking to Chuck and Nancy, and learning more about the alpacas and being able to spend some time around the animals, I came home even more excited about being a future alpaca owner!

As for the knitting, right now I have on the needles a pair of socks made with my own handspun yarn, the very colorful scarf ( and now that it’s warm out I don’t feel inspired to work on), the alpaca sweater ( that I’ve discovered has gauge issues, AGAIN! ), and a swatch that I started for the Deep V Argyle Vest, which I realized that I accidently bought superwash merino for, and that just won’t work out so well with croched steeks! So I’m trying to decide if I want to go ahead and knit the vest in this yarn, and machine sew the steeks, or make a LOT of barely blue and black socks.

That’s about it for now. Next time there will be pictures and finished projects, I promise!

Last night I was at my wheel, spinning away. I had been at it for about 5 minutes, just long enough to relax and get the rhythm going, when suddenly my wheel expolded! I was just spinning along when all of a sudden the flyer flew off! Very strange. So I put her back together again, and spun for about an hour with no problems. I have no clue what caused the flyer to jump right out from between the maidens. Weird…

I have managed to spin one little hank of 2ply! Isn’t it cute?

It’s a rather varried hank of yarn consisting of what I spun when we first got the wheel put together to see if she worked, some trying to remember what to do, some becoming more comfortable with spinning, and a bit of teaching Brad some spinning. It’s about 60 yards. I don’t what I’m going to do with it just yet. Right now it’s in a bag with my very first hank that I spun in the spinning class.

Perhaps I will make some sort of comemorative First Yarns something or other. Right now I’m practicing with some Fawn Corridale ( I’m assuming Fawn is the color ).

I’m trying to keep the singles fairly even and rather thin. I have found that I can spin relatively fine singles, that could probably be about sport weight when plied. I need to get a new flyer for the wheel though. The flyer this wheel came with back in ‘64 ( I recently discovered that my wheel was made between 1964 and 1967. It was the first design change Ashford made to their Traditional since 1938. ) has only one ratio, and I have found that I can barely put any tension at all on the bobbin. I would like to get the flyer that comes with the new Ashford Traditionals, which has 3 tension ratios. At some point I would also like to get the lace flyer kit.

I’m still poking along on my sweater. Still just an endless grey tube. I’m about finished with the side decreases. Woohoo! Then it’s on to increases. *sigh*. I haven’t finished the very colorful scarf yet either. I do a few rows here and there, and it’s coming along slowly. I’m not in a big hurry. What I am trying to finish, and am focusing my knitting time on is the other Norwegian Stocking. I’ve got a pretty good start on it.

I was re-inspired last weekend to finish the pair when I brought out the first sock, tried it on, and decided that I wasn’t happy with the fit of the heel, and I wasn’t to fond of the really pointy toe. So I ripped the whole foot back, knit the heel so it was a bit shorter ( it was baggy before ), and changed toe so that it was round. I’ll post new pictures when I have the set complete. Next up, while I continue with the sweater, I think that I will attempt Eunny’s Deep V Argyle Vest. That should be an adventure. I’ve never worked steeks before. I have a general understanding of how they work, and it sounds like a handy thing to know. From what I can tell, this looks like a fairly easy pattern. I’ve read through it a couple of times and I’ve gone through Eunny’s posts during the creation of the vest pattern, so I’m feeling confident. Now, I just need to find some yarn!

As you can see, I haven’t been working on my sweater! I needed a bit of color in my diet. I found this pattern. I’m knitting it in some Noro Silk Garden that I found in a dark corner at Mannings. It grabbed me by the leg and wouldn’t let go unless I promised to buy it. I had seen this stitch pattern awhile back, and had been pondering what I would use it in. Then in Mannings, I was overcome with the desire to have a very colorful scarf. I immediatly thought of this pattern when I saw the Noro. After I got home with it, I knit a swatch to see how I liked it. The skein I picked up started in the dark browns, so the swatch was really dark and it was hard to see the texture of the stitches. Then I remembered the multi- diagonal short rows scarves made from Noro. So I tried a bit of that. It was allright, but I decided that I liked the first idea best. This time I increased the cast on stitches from her remomended 30 to 34 (30 just didn’t seem wide enough for my taste), and started with a different skein that had lighter colors at the end. Much better! So I’ve been working on this and not the sweater that I’m supposed to be working on! Oh well, it’s a hobby, and hobbies are all about doing something that you enjoy. If the colorful scarf equals happiness, and the endless grey tube does not, then colorful scarf it is! Also, spinning equals happiness, so I’ve been doing some of that. I’m getting better at keeping the single strands fairly even. I’ve been practicing the long draw method. I think it’s helping. I would like to get enough 2-ply spun that I could knit something small with it. I’m thinking Shedir. I’ve had this hat on my to-do list for a long time. Recently Eunny knit one that turned out beautifully. It sparked my urge to give it a go but not until after I finish the colorful scarf and now that I think about it, I should knit the mate to my lonley Norwegian stocking!

I’ve suffered an Olympic disaster today. While working on the sweater, I kept thinking that it was looking awfully big. So I laid it out on the table, got out my measuring tape, and did a gauge check. Guess what! Instead of the 8 stitches and 8 rounds to an inch that I had on my original gauge swatch, I was getting 7 stitches and 8 rounds to an inch. All told, it worked out to about 5 and a half inches too big around! Much wailing and gnashing of teeth ensued. Miss Gno ( pronounced “No” with a silent G ) thought that it was great though. She claimed it as hers and wouldn’t let the other kitties near it. Notice the glaring:

So, I don’t think I’m going to make the Olympic deadline. Not at allmost a week in and needing to start all over again. I’m still going knit this sweater, and I’ll try to do as much as I can in the remaining days. Besides, I’m getting my spinning wheel this weekend, so I’ll be distracted by spinning!

I’m at about 6 inches so far now on this sweater, not as far as I would like to be 4 days into the olympics. I think I may be getting a bit faster though. It helps that I started it on the Addi Turbo needles. I almost didn’t. On Friday, I knit up my final swatch, and realized two things. 1: the US#3 24 inch bamboo needles that I planned to do the whole thing on were too short, and I really needed to knit the ribbing on US#2’s. Unfortunatly, I didn’nt have any #2 needles, and Clover donsen’t make circular needles in #2! So I had a frantic evening trying to find a #2 and #3 long enough for the job. The one LYS (Local Yarn Store) I was able to get to before they closed had only 2 #2 needles left in the store. The Addi Turbos. I had never used them before, and my first experiences wit metal needles were discouraging. I had been hesitant to see what all the buzz was about these needles, but faced with despiration, I went ahead and bought a 40 inch (way longer than I needed, but it was that or a way too short 16 inch ). The store was out of #3’s in anything, so I had to wait until Saturday to try to find that one. I had dreams Friday night that it was Saturday, and I was going from LYS to LYS trying to find this needle, and either nobody had any in stock, or they had never heard of that size needle. I think I may have been a wee bit nuts over finding it. On Saturday morning I started calling around. Two of the stores I called didn’t carry Addi ( I figured that since I started the sweater on Addi’s, I had better just do the whole thing on them lest I screw up the gauge somehow ). The third store did, of course, because it was the one that I didn’t want to have to go to. Nothing against the store, it’s a great store, tons of beautiful yarns and books, and friendly staff, it’s just that it is in this part of Richmond called Carytown. Now, Carytown has a force field or something around it that is only meant for me. It makes me completely forget how to get there. I’ve lived in Richmond for 27 of my 29 years, and I can never for the life of me remember how to get there. I only live about 10 minutes away from Carytown, and I have to mapquest it. Every. Time. So I only go there if I have absolutly no other choice. Luky for me, my husband came with me and he has much better luck with getting to Carytown, so I got there about 30 minutes before closing time, and bought the blasted needle already.

So, this is all I’ve got so far.

About 6 inches. I think that I’m becoming more comfortable with knitting continental. I am gaining some speed, and developing a cramp that runs along the top of my right hand all the way up my elbow! I’ll still knit tonight, but I’m going to take it a bit on the easy side.

This is my very first sock!!!!

Now I have one VERY warm leg! It went a lot faster than I expected. I thought that I would be working on it for months, but I got through most of it last weekend. I did run into a smidgen of trouble when it came to the toe area. I must have wide feet, because for the life of me I could not get the end of the sock to fit. It was just too tight. So after ripping the last three inches or so out several times, I ended up knitting a couple of rounds of the toe pattern without any decreases before I started the toe shaping. I have to say, I am very pleased with this stocking! It’s soooo comfy! Unfortunatly, I have to wait to start the other sock, because tomorrow starts the Knitting Olympics. I think that I have sorted out my sweater scheme. I’ve got most of the math figured out and written down, along with sketches, that I may be able to make some sense of later. My husband, on the other hand, has only had one opprotunity for a knitting lesson, and no time for practice sense then. I know that he still wants to participate, but it may turn out to be just a garter stitch scarf instead of a cabled scarf. Still, if he manages to learn to knit, and complete a scarf in 16 days, while working two full time jobs, that will be very impressive!

My husband and my Mother-in-law just absolutly rock. They conspired. They schemed. They talked over the phone in code, and I had no clue what they were up to until Friday evening when we arrived at my in-laws house to stay the weekend. I hadn’t even been in the door long enough to remove my coat when mom handed me an envelope. I opended it to find a print out from ebay showing a beautiful spinning wheel, THAT THEY BOUGHT FOR ME!!!!!!!!!!! I almost fell over, I had no idea! I’m soooo excited! My mother-in-law and I had taken a spinning class at The Mannings back in early January, and I took to spinning like a duck to water. I just seemed to come natural to me. Like I was made for this. I really wanted to get a wheel right then, but no way, couldn’t afford one. I thought about saving for one, but my car is elderly now, and needed lots of surgery, so I thought that it would be months, even years before I could get a wheel. They just rock. Now for the waiting. It will be two weeks before I get to meet my wheel! It’s like Christmas!
I got other prizes than the wheel too this weekend! Mom-in-law, Sis-in-law and I took a trip to The Mannings, on Saturday to buy yarn. That place is pure evil. I love it! Even though it’s a five hour drive total for me ( two from the in-laws) it’s worth it! I believe that it is my favorite yarn store. I bought yummy yummy alpaca yarn for my Knitting Olympics sweater, bought 2000 yards of Henry’s Attic Silk and Ivory yarn, that I don’t know what I’m going to use it for, but it was the last hank, and I’m sure I can make something with 2000 yards! I pondered buying roving, but since I’ll be back in two weeks, I decided to wait, and I put the Debbie Bliss book five on hold till the next trip. Between that, and getting most of the way through a stocking, I would say that was a wonderful weekend!