April is for……Alpacas!

Alpaca has definitely been my fibre of the month this month. I was lucky enough to be able to visit  The Naked Sheep during our stay with my parents in Northamptonshire at Easter. It’s definitely worth a visit if you are ever in the area. The Apacas were lovely, and although I was disappointed that there wasn’t any fibre available to buy, I did come away with some nice laceweight yarn.

 

I finally finished spinning up the grey alpaca silk blend from World of Wool.  This was spindle spun. I started off using the ply on the fly technique, but  ending up finishing the rest of the fibre, by spinning singles, and then Navajo plying on my wheel.  I decided to make another Storm Cloud Shawlette with this. I really like the pattern, and can see myself making a few more of these.

I’ve been doing a lot more spindle spinning this month – I got a lovely alpaca/merino/silk blend from LimeGreenJelly. I’m spinning this very fine – hoping to end up with a 2 ply laceweight

Last but not least on the Alpaca front, my sister has requested another pair of wrist warmers. I met her in Loop (just around the corner from where she lives) and she choose some Blue Sky Alpacas Melange ( a nice tweedy DK weight).

I found a nice free pattern from Drops Designs . The yarn is slightly heavier than the recommended yarn, so it’s producing a fairly dense  fabric, but I quite like it like that. Here’s my progress so far.

Wheel Spinning

 

I am now the proud owner of my very own spinning wheel! I’ve been thinking about buying one for a few years, but had been reluctant to go ahead for a couple of reasons. I wasn’t sure I would use it enough to justify the cost, or the space it would take up - we don’t have a particulaly small house, but my husband does sometimes comment on how much space my knitting and crocheting stuff takes up ( to be fair to him though, this is probably more down to my untidiness than anything else!)

We don’t live near a spinning wheel outlet, but I had planned to visit P&M woolcraft on the way to visit my parents at Easter to try a few wheels. Unfortunately, I couldn’t wait that long, so I went ahead and  bought the wheel I always thought I would buy – an Ashford Joy double treadle, mainly because I liked the way the wheel looks, and also the compact size.

 I know these are not the best reasons to choose a wheel, but I am alsolutely delighted with it. I find it easy and comfortable to use. It doesn’t get in the way when not in use (it fits neatly under my computer desk when folded), but when I want to use it, it only takes a couple of minutes to get it out and set it up to start spinning.

When I bought my wheel (from Wingham Wool Work – great service), it came with a £25 fibre voucher, which I used to buy a variety of fibre to practise on.

I’m really enjoying wheel spinning. I’ve already completed my first wheel spun project – a storm cloud shawlette using a two ply camel /silk blend spun from fibre bought with my voucher.

The camel/silk was  easy to spin once I got the hang of it. The finshed yarn was lovely and soft, and although not very consistent, about 14 wpi.

Here is the finished shawl – a nice, quick and easy pattern. I would definitely make it again.

I’ve also spun up the rest of the green hand dyed fibre I used for my crocheted cowl. I’ve got about 400 yards about 16 – 18 wpi. I’m using this to make an Ishbel shawl.

February update – knitting and spinning

February is here, and I’ve realised that I haven’t updated my blog for over a month – this is my first post of 2009.

I’ve been busy practising my spinning. Here’s one of my current spinning projects.

 

It’s an alpaca silk blend from World of Wool on a 2 inch olivewood whorl spindle from IST crafts. The fibre is beautifully soft and the spindle is lovely.It spins really well and the whorl has a lovely olive oil smell.

I finished my first handspun handknitted socks last week.

These were my first toe up socks. I used the universal toe up pattern from Knitty.com. I really enjoyed knitting them, once I got the hang of the short rows.

I’ve also started two new non handspun knitting projects. The first is the Bog Jacket from Knitting Around. It’s basically endless garter stitch, but has an interesting construction. A nice mindless pattern so far. I’m using Texere Troon Tweed yarn reclaimed from another project.

I’ve also started a Japanese Feather and Fan Shawl with the Knitwitches Heavy Laceweight Cashmere I bought from last years Knitting and Stitching Show.

This pattern requires a bit more attention, but I think it will be beautiful when it’s finished.

More Spindle Spinning

I have spent a lot of my free time spinning over the past couple of weeks. I dyed some more roving, and after spinning up a small amount, I decided that I wanted a slightly thicker yarn. Rather than wasting what I had already spun, I decided to make another crocheted cowl.

Here is the dyed roving

 

And here is the finished cowl

 

I got some lovely hand dyed fibre and a new Bosworth mini spindle for christmas. The spindle is lovely and spins really well. It’s made of Bocote wood. Here it is in use

I’m trying the Ply on the Fly technique, which I really like. It’s nice to know that the yarn will be almost ready to work with when it comes off the spindle.

Spindle Spinning

I recently had the sudden urge to try to learn to spin again. I bought a spindle and some fibre (about 200g of Bluefaced Leicester) a few years ago, but I couldn’t quite get the hand of it, so they have been languishing in my yarn storage box.

This time though, something seems to have clicked. I’m hoping to be able to spin yarn to make shawls, scarves socks in sock weight and heavy lace weight. My first attempt was too thick – when plied it came out approx DK weight. I’ve been practising for about one hour every evening over the past week, and last night I finally managed to create a 3 ply sock weight yarn.

This is a sample showing my most recent attempts.

The first (bottom) yarn is two ply, and came out too fine for socks (it also wasn’t well balanced hence the visible twist). The second (top) yarn was navajo plied. It’s actually for the same roving (some of the Bluefaced Leicester that I hadnpainted with the help of my daughters), but the colours look quite different due to the plying techniques.

I’ve also been experimenting crocheting with singles. The  photo at the start of this post shows a sample crocheted with a (rather uneven) single which was slightly underspun and then dryed with a weight after washing)

I’m really enjoying experimenting with my spindle spun, but I’ve got  a couple of christmas presents to finish  so I’ll have to resist spending too much time with my spindle until they are done!

Chevron Lace Cardigan – Pattern

The pattern for the Chevron Lace Cardigan is now available. Many thanks to those who tested it. If you have any questions about this pattern (or any of my other patterns) please email me at withoutDOTseamsATyahooDOTcoDOTuk

I’ve also started a 3 hour sweater in Sirdar Blur.

 

 This is the second time I’ve made this sweater. The first time I made it flat (as written), but
I’m modifying the pattern to make this one top down. The top down version is going very quickly – it will still take me a lot more than 3 hours though! I will post my modifications if it turns out O.K.

Chevron Lace Cardigan

I started and finished a new cardigan this week. It’s a new design and the pattern is currently being tested. Hopefully I will have the pattern ready to publish here within the next couple of weeks

The photos isn’t great, and I haven’t blocked it or added a button yet, but I am really pleased with it.

It’s a top down seamless pattern which uses DK weight yarn. I used about 225g of New Lanark DK weight Donegal Silk tweed. The stitch pattern is the same as I used for the one row lace cowl.

Eva’s Shawl – Pattern updates

I decided to start another Eva’s shawl with the Kauni yarn I bought at the Knitting and Stitching Show. This provided me with the perfect opportunity to finally putting the pattern together into a PDF file. I changed the instructions to make them clearer (I hope!). I also changed the terminology from UK to US. I thought long and  hard about this – as I am British, I wanted the original instructions to be in UK terms, but quite a few people have commented that this was confusing. I toyed with making separate UK and US versions, but decided it was easier to go with the US terminology – as most available patterns use US terminolgy, British crocheters are probably more used to converting than US crocheters – I hope this is OK, and would welcome further comments!

 I have also updated the Spanish translation as there was an error in row three.

I am really enjoying working with the Kauni Yarn – the colour changes are fascinating. I have some reservations about the brightness of the colours (I usually go for more muted tones), but I love the way it looks so far.

One Row Lace Cowl

I’ve been thinking about crocheting myself a cowl for the past couple of weeks. I started swatching today and came up with this.

It’s a really simple one row lace pattern. I have written the pattern up for several different yarn weights (see here or link in side bar). Please bear in mind that this pattern has not been tested (except by me!). I think it would be nice in a subtley variagated sock weight yarn (e.g. malabrigo sock).

Eva’s Shawl – Spanish Translation

Silvia Insaurralde of the Argentinian blog http://curupisa.blogspot.com/  has very kindly translated my Eva’s Shawl pattern into Spanish. You can find a copy here. There is also a link to the pattern in the side bar.