Knitting small circumferences on two circular needles

This is a very good breakdown of the two needle technique.

Washing Fleece

An excellent discussion on washing fleece.

Latest fixation

I've decided I must make the Knitwhits Flore hat for various babies that will be appearing in my life soon.

However, this is a very feminine hat, and I need to find a way to make it masculine; I think I can do that by making it all green and saying it's a brussels sprout. :)

The other issue is that it's layered and therefore very hot if made in superwash wool. I think I've settled on Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece, which is a cotton - wool blend and very expensive, but I won't have to buy too much of it I think.

Alpaca watchcap

This is the first thing I knit with baby alpaca. I gave it to my friend in Northern Ireland for Christmas.



Some observations:

Alpaca is wonderful stuff. Soft, silky, warm, it hardly registered on my skin at all when I was knitting it.

Alpaca is not nearly as elastic as wool. In the future, I will probably use a wool-alpaca blend.

Alpaca tends to relax with the first washing, so knit in a slightly tighter gauge than you want the finished garment to be.

Nifty pattern generaters

An interesting list of pattern generators based on entering gauge and finished measurement sizes.

Baby socks off the spindle

I spun up a couple of ounces of handpainted roving at Deep Color to make a sock on two circular needles, but I thought a pair of baby socks would be more useful.

These are knit with freshly-spun yarn straight off the spindle with no finishing.



The pattern is pretty simple:

With sock needles (in this case size 2), cast on enough stitches for about 5.5 inches (in this case 36 stitches).

Knit 8 rounds K1, P1 ribbing, continue in stockinette for about 2 inches (20 rows). Divide half the stitches (18 stitches) and switch to working flat across them for heel.

Short row heel: k to last stitch, slip last stitch, wrap yarn around, turn; knit back to last stitch, wrap yarn around, turn; knit to next to last stitch, wrap yarn around, turn...keep this up until there are 1/3 of the total heel stitches betwen slipped/wrapped stitches (6 stitches). Then, knit across, knit both slipped stitch and wrap together, turn...keep this up until all slipped stitches and wraps are knitted, finishing on a knit row. Heel made.

Knit another inch on all stitches (about 10 rounds)

Star Toe:
Divide total stitches by 4. K2 together, knit (1/4 stitches minus 1), repeat three more times. Next round knit one plain, K2 together, knit (1/4/stitches minus 2), repeat three more times, knit one plain round... continue this until you have 8 stitches left on needle, thread yarn through with yarn needle to tie off, turn inside out and weave in ends on the wrong side.



These are the finished socks, presented to my coworker Lili on her last day at work before maternity leave.

Drop spindles on the brain

Despite the fact that I've been spending a lot/too much on spinning supplies in the past few months, I feel the need for a new set of hand spindles. I just bought an Ashford Joy wheel not eight weeks ago, and now I want to go low production again for some reason.

I'm getting very nice lofty sock-yarn singles off my cheap-but-effective Annie May spindles, and I'm on a major sock kick, so I'd like to get a really efficent spindle. This translates into a spindle with LONG spin time of a medium weight that can hold a lot of yarn. A whorl notch would be convenient, too.

Problem is, I'm not terribly comfortable with buying a spindle sight unseen. Claudia sells Schacht hi-lo spindles for about $16 each, which is as good as you're going to get for that price for a midweight, which covers that. However, I also want a heavyweight and a smaller one for traveling.

I've narrowed it down to the Bosworth and the Golding. I've heard that the Golding is a sound design for the heavyweight, but it's very expensive and while gorgeous, I feel a little silly spinning on something so ornate. Plus I'd feel nervous traveling with it.

Everyone says they like the Bosworth spindles so I'm sure I'm going to buy one of them for fine spinning and travel sizes once I can justify spending the money. Still undecided on the heavyweight spindle.

Natural dyes

These are some wool rovings I dyed in a weekend class at Deep Color Studio. These are low immersion dyed with botanicals (left to right): madderroot, marigold, logwood grey, logwood purple, multicolored, multicolored, blended sage, cochineal, madderroot




Here's a closeup of some rovings dyed with madderroot, marigold, cochineal, logwood grey, and logwood purple.



These were vat dyed: osage overdyed with indigo, straight indigo, cochineal overdyed with indigo, cochineal, and madderroot.

Spindle bag, spindle and acid-dyed merino

Spindle bag
Originally uploaded by KatDee.

This is the inside of my spindle bag, where I've been working on some lofty bulky acid-dyed merino in greens and blues bought at Deep Color Studio.

Undyed merino, spindle-spun and plied

Coil of handspun
Originally uploaded by KatDee.

This is some ecru merino I spun and plied on a Silver Goose agate adjustible spindle. Not the best spindle in the world, but it's serviceable.

This will probably find it's way into a fingerknitted skinny scarf at some point.

Total Blog Repurposing

I've decided to make this blog into my knitting/spinning/dyeing/general fiberarts blog.