Quick spun scraps

This past year I bought a 1 pound bag of scraps of fiber. I never really intended to spin any of it in a serious manner. I bought it, instead, for when I go into our Preschool (and hopefully the Kindergarten this year) and talk about Wool. I spin a little and let the kids paw through it all and talk about sheep and all the cool things you can do with Wool. I capitalize "wool" because I did this for the past two years on the week they are studying the letter "W". (We also sing "Ba-Ba-Black-Sheep" and watch the Pixar short "Boundin'", which you should immediately go out and watch if you've never seen it!)

This year, we also made "felt balls" in the pre-K class. You take a puff of fiber and fluff it up with your fingers. Then get it wet with lightly soapy water and roll it in your hands like a ball of Play-Doh. In about a minute, you'll have something mostly ball-shaped. If you do it like making a Doh-snake, you'll get a little felted worm. The kids really enjoyed it.

But before that day, I was having a "blah" day, and I figured with an entire pound, it was unlikely that an ounce would be missed. So I grabbed out a random number of scraps from the brown and blue/green family and just spun them. This is the result. It is entirely random, woolen-spun, and very soft. For the most part I think the fibers are Merino, but there could be some BFL in there since I had to change my drafting a bit between scraps. I'm positive there's even a pinch of cashmere (the staple was extremely short and it was really wonderfully soft).

I think I'll knit it up into a little animal and felt it. But for what I wanted, just getting to sit down and spin something, fast, was perfect and I felt much better after simply for having completed a small project.

Waterfall Mitts

Waterfall Mitts
by Project Pictures on Flickr.

With the increasing availability of free patterns and the ease of finding them on Ravelry, it's easy to sidestep paying designers, or to think that they charge too much for their work. But when you sit down to do it yourself, it becomes very clear that what designers do is not simple, easy or fast.

Take these mitts. I loved making these mitts.. once I got things to work. But that wasn't easy. I started knitting them in the round. I tried magic loop. I tried DPNs. I had problems with the yarn slipping and sliding, making "ladders" in the knitting, and with needles completely falling out of the stitches. I also started with a completely different lace pattern, the Tilting Squares pattern to match the cowl. Unfortunately, Tilting Squares don't resize well. They don't easily come out to match the circumference of a hand with the stitch counts you can manage with them, and they loose their charm when knit as a panel that is anchored on either side because they no longer have the freedom to tilt.

I found all this out by knitting the first of this pair of mitts over eight times, and ripping out my knitting each time.

I will say one thing. All that abuse gave the yarn (Textiles A Mano "Lucerne", 65% cashmere/35% silk) a chance to shine--and I'm not just talking the silk content. This yarn is strong and durable on top of being beautiful and luxurious. When it could have turned into a partly-felted mess, it still frogged easily after multiple times being knit. It continued to knit up beautifully even after all that working, and once both mitts were completed I couldn't even tell which one had been worked more!



These mitts are knit flat, so that there won't be any odd stretching of the fabric. Trust me, they are much more fun to knit flat than to struggle with any of the various methods of knitting in the round. In addition, you must knit the section of the thumb-hole flat, anyway.

After being knit flat, the sides are seamed using the tails of yarn from the cast-on and cast-off edges. Working from the edge to the middle lets you control exactly where the thumb-hole falls, and how big it will be.

Once seamed up, the lace-in-ribbing expands and contracts to cling to your hands in a sheathe of warmth. And, what can I say? It's cashmere/silk. They are wonderful, if I must say it myself.

But knitting is only half the work. Then you must write it down, make sure you wrote it down correctly, be certain that other people will be able to understand what you wrote when you're not there to explain it, and then make it look lovely. And then it helps to have someone else double check, test knit, and re-read to make sure you didn't slip up on something simple and obvious (or even on something incredibly obscure).

I have to admit, I look at the pattern-costs on Ravelry differently now. I see the hours of work that went into the project on top of the creativity in the design.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that these mitts are also for sale on Ravelry, now.

February Overview

It's amazing how fast February goes by. It's a short month, and we have several birthdays in it which eat up a lot of free time. So I would write up a "recap", except that I forgot to post my progress for the month in the first place!

Since I still need to keep up with my spinning/knitting goals, here's the overview of my February projects.

I spun four ounces of A Verb for Keeping Warm fiber (80/20 Merino/silk, dyed in "Pilgrim" for the Pro-Verbial club). It became about 320 yards of 3-ply yarn. This is in keeping with my Stashdown and "Spin 12 in 12 months" goals for 2011

  

I knit four ounces of handspun, making another 198 Yards of Heaven shawl (Ravelry link). This was out of my own handspun yarn and I used just short of 350 yards by knitting an additional two lace repeats before starting the edging chart.

  

I knit four ounces of mill-spun yarn, although technically this was not from my stash. I was given the yarn in order to design a cowl and matching mitts (a blog post on the mitts is up next!).

  

I started to weave four matching place-mats. I managed to warp the loom on the last day of February, so I suppose this could technically count as a February project. Since it is using several balls of cotton, I think I will just count it as a February/March overlap project, unless I get really ambitious in the next few weeks.

For works in progress, I am still making progress on my WiseSweater. I finished my pattern-band swatches with an option I liked and cast on for the first front panel. It is easy, but mindful knitting and not the sort I can easily tote about town, so it is taking a little more time than usual. I am also working on a shawl for a friend to display in her shop. Hopefully that will come out well (and be done by the end of March!).

Tilting Squares Cowl

Tilting Squares Cowl
by Project Pictures on Flickr.

I have the wonderful good fortune to live in a town with several fantastic fiber-arts shops (three yarn stores, one fiber, and one weaving, not counting the craft-chains that also carry yarn). One of these is Textiles A Mano, run by Laura Macango-Shang.

Laura's shop is just wonderful. Nearly all of the yarn in Laura's shop is a product of her own hard work. She creates fantastic and beautiful hand-dyed yarns. There are shelves upon shelves of skeins of all sorts of fibers and colors. It's impossible to walk through and not pet something.

Laura is fantastic as well. She hosts a knitting group on Wednesday night (which I am sadly unable to attend), and a spinning group on Saturdays. Saturday spinning is something I look forward to attending each week. Lots of great women come together for a couple hours of spinning and talking.

After one of our Saturday meetings, Laura approached me about working with her yarn. She had a new yarn base (65% cashmere / 35% silk) and needed a pattern to sell with it. I was thrilled and flattered to say the least. We both thought a cowl would be a great use for this yarn, and she even had a suggestion of a lace pattern, the Tilting Squares stitch.

I had a great time putting this cowl together. The yarn is wonderful and a real pleasure to knit. I worked with an older Addi 16" circular, and wished I had a Knit Picks fixed circular instead--I've become addicted to their sharp points and the blunter Addi needles just aren't fast enough for my tastes. They are still nice needles and the project fairly flew off of them.

Patterns are really interesting to write. It is quite the intellectual exercise to take instructions that are perfectly clear to you, personally, and turn them into instructions that other people can easily read and understand. Subtle details like how information flows on the page and where charts and explanations should go are also tricky. And, of course, you need a couple of good pictures to illustrate how your knitted object is going to look.

I'm really glad I have a good camera, and a willing-to-help daughter. At not-quite-six, she did a fantastic job of trying to take pictures with mommy's huge camera. Unfortunately, its computer brain was in direct competition with young fingers and getting correct focus was a trial. We got a couple of usable shots out of that effort, but in the end I was forced to the old trick of "hold your camera at arms' length and hope for the best". I can't say how much I love digital cameras. Film is an interesting media, but the fact I can take 20 pictures, know immediately if any of them are any good whatsoever, and trash the bad ones right off my camera is invaluable.

After jumping through all the hoops with noting, knitting, frogging, re-knitting, writing, photographing, formatting, proofing and printing, the Tilting Squares Cowl is now up for sale on Ravelry, or available with the Lucerne cashmere/silk yarn from Textiles A Mano.

The Strange Joy of Frogging

Frogged Yarn
Originally uploaded by Project Pictures

What is this, you ask? An ephemeral, deep-sea coral? Some strange spaghetti monster? A steaming pile of yarn vomit? No. This is, or rather this was, my Diamond Fantasy Shawl, now gone to the happy frog pond in the sky. This was my first shawl, back before I really even understood what a lovely thing a shawl could be. But it never really worked.

First off, it was too small. A single skein of sock yarn can yield a respectable kerchief, but really two are necessary for a good wrap. Second, it was rough. I don't know if it was my washing, or my finishing, but soft Merino yarn that was usually a joy to touch became harsh and twine-like in this piece. And lastly, the colors of the yarn warred with the lovely diamond-pattern of the lace. When worn, all the detail simply disappeared.

Now that I've been knitting for a bit, I've come to recognize that not every project works. Sometimes it's obvious when you finish--it's too big, or too small, or your skeins didn't match and it has a horrible stripe right at the wrong place. It could be more subtle with a fit that doesn't quite flatter no matter how you gently block or tug it into place. I started to notice that once I had more than one of a couple of types of knitting, certain projects ended up in the back of the shelf or the bottom of the pile, never to see the light of day.

I decided to frog the Diamond Fantasy Shawl. It was a hard decision. It was my first. It was pretty. But it wasn't getting worn when all of my other shawls and scarves were seeing frequent use. It's time was done. And the yarn is just too pretty to languish in a project that didn't make me happy.

Here that mess is, again. It is amazing what a nice, hot, soapy bath can do for unruly yarn. Gone are those crazy kinks from blocking. Gone is the sproingy mass of curls. Instead, I once again have a smooth skein. And even better, it's softer! And even with a few yards of scrappy bits to deal with, I'm really looking forward to seeing this yarn become socks or some other project where the unique handpainted nature can shine, rather than compete with the stitch-pattern.

But, it is not the only thing that has visited the frog pond this week. Oh, no. I also had the almost-lovely Versatility. Versatility wanted to be a great project, it just never was. I'm almost afraid to share a picture of it because, well, Ugh.

Versatility wanted to be versatile! It was a scarf. It was a shrug. It was a vest. It was a hood. It was cables and lace and bobbles. It was lovely.. and terrible. No matter how I arranged it on me, I looked smooshed into it like a sausage. The beads I used to replace the bobbles tarnished quickly, and they were cold against my skin when I tried to use it as a scarf. It had a huge stripe in the middle where my third skein of yarn didn't match the original two I purchased. It just didn't work.

This one was actually even more fun to rip out than the shawl. I had a deep sense of satisfaction knowing I wouldn't have the project looking at me reproachfully from its shelf in the closet for never bringing it out to wear. Every line that I pulled out of its knitting made me a little bit happier. By the end, I had three orderly balls of yarn that should probably still be skeined and washed, but will do so on my time schedule, whenever the whim may take me.

Until then, happy knitting everyone. Or happy frogging!

January Recap

Textiles a Manos batts
Originally uploaded by Project Pictures

This year, I made resolutions. That's not something I normally do, or rather I don't normally consign resolutions to be made only on the first of the year. I like to make them all year around, whenever they need to be made. But I made fiber resolutions this year, and I've managed to keep them for a whole 31 days so far!

First up, we have some lovely "aubergine" batts. These were gifted to me by my wonderful husband. I spun them up into a lace-weight (possibly fingering) 2-ply yarn that yielded about 450 yards. I'd like to use these with a slightly-off-white handspun in a weaving project, but don't have that fiber yet (and can't buy it, since I'm still on my "Stash Staycation" until the first day of Spring). This also dovetails nicely into Janel Laidman's Stashdown (which reinforces my 4-oz-per-month goal). And my resolution with the Spin your Stash group on Ravelry. I feel like I have a whole motivational horde behind me!

Second, I have knit four (actually closer to six) ounces of handspun yarn. This is the Blue Whale (Ravelry link) shawl designed by Jared Flood. The pattern came with the fiber and is a part the AVFKW "Pro-Verbial Club", so there will be several more of these projects throughout the year. In fact, I got a bit of a jump start on February's spinning with the next shipment, and boy is it pretty. But that's for another post. The yarn for this shawl was a lot of fun to spin and I'm really happy with how it worked out in the pattern. It's gratifying to see a plan work out almost entirely as intended.

I also wove a scarf (although this project tread the thin line of the intent of my resolution, since I did buy new yarn specifically for the scarf because I was afraid to "waste" any of my current stash. Then again, the lessons learned were valuable and I will now be comfortable using stash-yarn for further weaving projects). Weaving is extra and not "required" by my project-resolutions. But I'm probably going to, anyway. I have hopes of making some place-mats in February. I've already done the math, and I think that's the hardest part.

And last, but not least, I knit "four ounces" of millspun yarn (also a Christmas gift, but this time from my daughter). Socks typically use four ounces, even though this particular yarn comes in 50-gram skeins and thus is slightly short of the full four-ounce mark. And since the socks are for my daughter, the project did not use the entire two skeins of yarn--but it's close enough. The remainder of that yarn will get used as scrap, probably in a scrappy woven scarf. Or it will get knit into a tiny cosy of some sort for small electronics. As it is, it's not enough for another full-sized project and I'm just going to count it as used up!

The Mitten - The Cast of Critters

The Mitten - The Cast of Critters
Originally uploaded by Project Pictures

I've been avoiding this post.

It's rather a silly thing. First, I avoided making the post because I didn't want to "give it away". This ensemble was created as a Christmas gift for my niece and nephew (and really for their Mommy and Daddy and Grandma and Grandpa as well, since I knew they would all share).

Second, I avoided making this post because... I knew it was going to be so darned long. Blogging each little animal, when I understood so little of exactly what I had done, intimidated me. (But as I have decided this post will not explain how to make each individual creature, I have gotten past that fear.)

But, as Sandi Wiseheart actually mentioned me on her blog (SQUEEEEE!!!!) I figured I'd better get off my butt and get this one done!

Forgive me repeating myself just a little bit. I set out this Christmas to make Kitten Mittens for my niece and nephew. The nursery rhyme is near-and-dear to me, because it was hand-embroidered on my crib quilt (which later became my twin-bed-quilt when a 1-foot border was added on all sides). I loved my quilt and its whimsically embroidered kittens, each searching for their mittens through blades of grass. When the idea came to me to knit mittens for the kids I decided that just two wouldn't do--instead I would knit three that didn't match. Kitten mittens, as it were.

I wanted to send the story, too, and started hunting up books that would work. There are quite a few versions out there, but none with which I fell in love. But while hunting, the woman helping me said, "Oh, but you must read The Mitten!. I'd never run into Jan Brett's books before, but I instantly fell in love. And the more I read it, the more I became convinced that I needed to make this story.

I started with the mitten itself. I dug through my stash to find some appropriate handspun--in this case a sample of Cheviot I had received in trade. I had just about the right yardage and a good weight of yarn. I improvised a mitten using an article called "Progressive Gloves" (Interweave Knits, Winter 2003) and a related article about thumb gussets, which I have used many times to create gloves and mittens in the past. It was easy to knit up, and if it came up a bit short in the fingers it hardly mattered, since it was only going to be stuffed with the next step in my plan... the critters!

In this story, a little boy pleads for a pair of white mittens to be knit by his Grandma. She eventually agrees, even though she thinks he'll loose them in the snow. When he goes out to play, predictably he immediately looses one mitten. While he continues to play, a whole host of animals crawl one-by-one into the mitten to get warm.

I worked from two patterns I found on Ravelry, one for "Owlets" and the other a "Baby Polar Bear", but the rest of the animals I improvised. I had particular fun with the rabbit (crocheted from 100% handspun angora yarn) and the mole (made from handspun CVM) but the rest were completely adorable as well. Each had its own quirks and I became noticeably more adept at creating what I wanted as I went along.

I've been asked several times to write these up as patterns, and I'm seriously considering it. The major hurdle is that I hardly know how to read crochet patterns, much less write them. Still, should the time present itself sometime this year, I may try to tackle the task.

And I'll be sure to post them here!

Ella Rae Scarf

Ella Rae Scarf
Originally uploaded by Project Pictures

Even though I am on a "Stash Staycation" with a promise of not adding to my stash until the first day of Spring, I have been presented with a small difficulty in that I really could use some yarn with which to practice weaving--yarn that is not too expensive and I don't mind "messing up" a bit. Most of what remains in my stash is high-end sock yarn, and sweater quantities of heavier weight yarn that are already earmarked to be... sweaters, of course.

This meant that when a 50% off any one regular priced item at the local Ben Franklin (which happens to have an unusually nice yarn section) came to my inbox, my resolved crumbled a little. I went hunting.

What I found was a lovely skein of Ella Rae Merino Lace. It's not a true laceweight yarn. I would probably mark it as Light Fingering weight, but it is a bit lighter than I'd want to use for socks as well. It is superwash, beautifully dyed and delightfully squishy. I fell in love at at half price it seemed perfect for another loom project.

I dithered about it for a little bit. I had a hard time wrapping my head around how to do all the math. It's pretty straight forward when you say, "I want to make a project X wide and Y long." It's a little harder when you say, "I have 460 yards of yarn, how can I best divide that in length and width to have a good sized scarf, and still have enough left over to weave it after warping?!"

I finally hammered through the numbers on my spreadsheet and thought I had them down pretty well. They made sense. Double checked and nudged about, they still made sense, and so I decided to go with it.

I warped for a scarf that would be around 8" wide (a little less for shrinkage) and hopefully about 2 yards long when finished. That meant I actually put on 2.5 yards for the warp, the extra 18" accounting for "take up", "shrinkage" and "loom waste". I must not have measured that quite right, because instead of that using up just a little over half my ball of yarn, I was down to just over 1/3 of a ball left after warping. That wasn't enough to weave the whole length. Ouch.

But since this was partly an exercise to see what happens with bad math, and how far you can get with what's left, I wove anyway.

After getting the warp set up, I started to weave my header with waste yarn and ran into another curiosity.. too many ends in one slot. Somehow I had accidentally put an extra set about 1.5 inches in from the edge. I had two options. Cut them out, or shift everything over. I opted to untie the warp ends and move everything over one space so everything was properly spaced and then tied back on again. Of course, that's five yards I didn't have for the weft, but oh, well. One mistake found.

As I began to weave, I was careful not to beat quite so hard this time, leaving open spaces between each pick, but not too much. I snugged the selvedges in carefully, but not tight enough to actually draw in the cloth (next time, they need to be just a smidge tighter. I'm told a small amount of draw-in is okay to get clean edges). I also did a small detail of Leno Lace three inches into the beginning of the scarf. It looks wonderful! In particular it is 2x2 leno on a closed shed.

I was feeling pretty smart as I got down towards the other end of the scarf. Despite my miscalculation on length and width, I had figured out one other helpful detail. When winding my stick-shuttle, I had wound 50 wraps on one side, and then turned the shuttle around and wound 50 wraps on the other side. Switch back and forth, and when you get down to the last 50, you know you're coming to the end of your yarn. More than that, I was easily able to calculate a good approximate of the yardage left. Add that to the known width of my weft, and I could give a good guess how many picks I could weave with my remaining yarn. I knew I'd need 36 picks to be the final three inches of cloth, so when I got close to that I did my Leno detail for the tail end, and then wove to the last tiny bit of yarn. I left just enough to hemstitch the end of the scarf. Perfect.

Perfect, except for the extra two feet of warp.

So stash-diving I went and I came up with a scrap of handspun I did last year for a Spindler's Challenge that really matched the warp well! I figured this was the space where I could try and see what beating harder, and pulling the selvedges in really tightly would do to the cloth.

I advanced the warp enough to have a nice fringe on the tail end of the scarf and then wove with my handspun until it ran out. I ended up with a pretty little sample I might turn into a wall-hanging.

The scarf seemed too loose to be a nice project. I washed it, anyway, and was still somewhat disappointed as it started to dry. But after it dried, I took it downstairs and tried to steam-block the leno so it would match the width of the scarf, and suddenly, after ironing the whole thing I found the cloth had pulled together into something cohesive, lovely, and gorgeously soft!

I'm already loving wearing this scarf around town. It's light and should last well into the Spring, but still pretty warm. I was almost sad to leave it behind today to try out wearing yet another new finished item. I'm definitely looking forward to more sock-yarn-scarves in the future.

Raw Wool Sampler - Complete set

Raw Wool Sampler
Originally uploaded by Project Pictures

Here's the true wrap-up of this little adventure.

From the top:
Merino 3-ply worsted
Merino 3-ply woolen
Polwarth 3-ply worsted
Polwarth 3-ply woolen
Cormo 2-ply worsted
Cormo 3-ply woolen
Corriedale 3-ply worsted
CVM singles worsted

It took me an entire year to get through all five two-ounce samples. I probably could have wrapped it up sooner, but I was distracted by all the many things I had to work on through the year. In fact, a few samples are missing from this picture because they have already been incorporated into other projects.

I think I really learned a lot working with this wool. I learned a lot of different tactile properties of each breed. I learned how to maintain lock structure and effectively wash without felting the raw wool. I learned how to comb the locks, and card the waste for spinning into usable yarn.

And above all, I learned that while I enjoy trying this stuff out to learn it, it's not my true calling. I love all this yarn. But I'll be perfectly happy to leave the processing to the mills from now on, no matter how tempting the smell of fresh wool and lanolin may be. Or at least, I'll leave it to the mills, right after I finish with the pound of fleece I couldn't resist this year!

Wraping up - Merino Sample

Raw Wool Sample - Merino
Originally uploaded by Project Pictures

As we get down to the end, I start to feel like I'm repeating myself and so I write less and less..

Merino is lovely. It is soft, full of incredible amounts of lanolin, and packed with elastic crimp. After being carefully washed, it combed easily and spun as if it were leaping into yarn from my fingers without any real guidance. And in both the woolen and worsted yarns, it created an extremely similar yarn to the Polwarth.

This Merino is a slightly richer brown than my Polwarth sample. But unless you look closely, it is easy to mistake one for the other.

Despite all the other wonderful qualities of the various samples, I think Merino is my favorite. I might choose a different wool to bring out different qualities in the yarn I want, but for pure pleasure I will reach for Merino every time.

Wrapping up - Polwarth sample

Raw Wool Sample - Polwarth
Originally uploaded by Project Pictures

My fourth sample from the Spinning Loft Sampler was a lovely brown Polwarth.

Polwarth is a popular fiber right now. Yet another fine-wool with a lot of Merino in it's background, this breed has 75% Merino/25% Lincoln (a long-wool breed) and is considered a dual-purpose meat and fiber breed.

I love this brown! I had no idea how much I would enjoy wool that wasn't white, but the three colored offerings from this batch were a joy to spin. Once again, this sample was combed/spun worsted and the waste carded/spun woolen. I went for somewhat similar sized yarns, so that the woolen and worsted differences are a bit more obvious and not obscured by the differences in yarn construction.

This Polwarth was not as lanolin-heavy as the Cormo or the Merino, but still had a significant amount to be cleaned out. It also doesn't have quite as pronounced crimp. But it combed easily with my borrowed mini-combs, and spun up wonderfully into squishy three-ply yarns. The woolen yarn is much more lofty and squishable than the worsted yarn, but both have a delightful hand.

Wrapping up - Cormo sample

Raw Wool Sampler - Cormo
Originally uploaded by Project Pictures

Last Christmas I received a wonderful gift of a "Fine Wool Sampler" from The Spinning Loft. It came packed with two-ounce samples of raw wool from five breeds of sheep (CVM, Corridale, Cormo, Merino and Polwarth).

Here's the third sample: Cormo wool. I had put off finishing up spinning the samples because of the amount of work in processing them. But this time I decided to follow up on an offer from the owner of Dyelots to borrow her mini-combs (thank you, Janis!!).

While working with my hair-picks sufficed to get the job done, working with real combs was much more enjoyable and quite a bit faster. Still, I found I must have lightly felted the locks in washing, because they were quite a bit of work to comb!

The waste went in a box and I carded it up into rolags.

The fine lace-weight skein is the combed wool, spun worsted. The fluffy skein is the carded waste, spun woolen. Both skeins have a delightful "sproing!", and can easily be stretched several inches with a gentle tug. The elasticity is amazing.

Cormo is a beautiful wool. I can see how it would be difficult to process properly in a mill, but it is certainly worth it to find a good source.

Rainbow Striped Cardigan

Rainbow Striped Cardigan
Originally uploaded by Project Pictures

I'm thinking I'll let this particular project speak for itself.

But in short, it's a cardigan. It's a pattern I have knit before and really liked. And I had a friend that needed a baby sweater. With yarn I had on hand that fit the pattern, and a fun idea, I set to work.

And it came out beautifully.



A couple of quick thoughts just in case I need reminding later:

• Slipped selvedges make a very nice edge, but may not be strictly necessary or advantageous if you're going to seam it anyway. Use a stockinette or garter edge for more points of attachment.
• Stripes are awesome. Stripes have a ton of ends. Use stripes sparingly, or get a self-striping yarn.
• Leaving longer ends than normal at the edges of the stripes was a very good idea and made finishing the project a lot easier.

What Was Made

First weaving - mini scarf
Originally uploaded by Project Pictures

So. The loom. It calls me (but sadly I am busy with many things, and can only answer one call at a time).

I was thrilled to pull this almost-scarf off the loom as a first project. For warping willy-nilly and pulling design ideas out of the air, it looks pretty slick. It's just long enough to go around the back of my neck and fold over my chest, so I may actually use it as a scarf for a while. I do so hate a cold breeze down my neck.

I originally warped until I said to myself (albeit in harsher terms) "Oh, dear, I'm running out of yarn!" So then I wove until I really did run out of yarn and this is what was made. I will admit that even "willy-nilly" there was some thought put into it. I wanted the white stripe so I could see what I was doing with the dark brown yarn. I thought I didn't have a lot of the white, so I figured the off-center stripe would be nice (and it is!). It is deliberately placed. There are 20 ends of brown, 20 ends of white, and then 60 ends of brown (actually I just recounted and found I have 64 ends--doh!). In some schools of design "three makes a pattern". So I thought that making one side three times wider than the other would have a sense of proper weight. I did the same thing with the horizontal striping. There are three times as many picks of brown as there are of white. Right or wrong, I think it works and I'll do it again sometime.

My edges visibly improved with practice. I think they could use even more improvement--but that's me. And of course we're always harder on ourselves than other people are when looking at our work! Our weaving LYS-owner assured me I'm doing great. I believe her.

Beginning Selvedge

Ending Selvedge

But even after using up the last of both my white and brown yarn, there was still more warp! Rather than waste that effort, I dug into the stash and pulled out the final nugget of some LionBrand Wool-Ease I'd used in my first big knitting project (a baby sack we never used for the baby because it was too scratch.. and plain. And BOY was that a lot of stockinette to knit!).

At that point I "advanced the warp", which is to say I cranked the whole thing forward so there was a big gap. Then I set about trying a number of different techniques using the pink Wool-Ease. I started using a "pick up stick", which is a way to lift parts of the warp beyond what the loom does normally, so you can make more patterns. Then I tried the weaver's version of lace, "leno". I can't seem to stop myself from thinking of Jay every time I read or write that. Oh, well. I also did some "Brooks Bouquets" which I really liked.

Warp Floats

Leno Lace

After everything was done, I got out scissors and CUT THE WARP. Yes, I cut a lot of yarn. And I didn't even cry about it. And I dug out of my brain some old macrame skills (thanks, Mom!!) from when I was a Girl Scout. It made for a very finished-looking fringe.

It's a good first project. I've been thinking and planning and doing some math for project #2 in my head. I think I have it figured out. But I have a little something else in the works, first.

Resolutions

This time of year, many of us make promises to ourselves. Eat less. Exercise more. Loose those holiday pounds. Run farther. Keep the house clean. Catch up on the backlog on your desk. And so on.

This year, I'm going to loose pounds... from my stash.

I have already entered a "Stash Staycation" pact with a friend. Neither of us will purchase any more fiber until Spring (that is, March 21st) with the one exception of WIPs where you run out. It would be just plain cruel to make a girl wait until Spring to finish that sweater she wanted to wear this year...

But that's just part of the deal.

I don't just have yarn stash. I have millspun yarn and handspun yarn. And on top of that, I have unspun fiber. I have laceweight and fingering and DK and Worsted and Bulky. I have bags of sample bits of handspun and leftovers from old projects. There's nothing wrong with having an inspirational stash, but I'd like to reduce my backlog of projects and the amount of yarn I'm just saving because it's pretty in the skein. So, here's the plan.

• For every time I get more fiber/yarn (gift or purchase), I must spin that weight in fiber. This means either immediately spinning the new item, or getting something out of my stash.
• For every project I spin, I must knit an equivalent weight handspun.
• For every project I knit out of handspun, I must knit the same out of millspun.
• For every project I knit out of millspun, I must spin a project.

I think it's a pretty good plan, if I can stick to it. What's your plan for the new year?

2010 in Review

I really enjoyed posting this last year. So here are this year's projects!

I wasn't gonna ... but ...

Schacht 20" Flip Rigid Heddle Loom
Originally uploaded by Project Pictures

Right.

I wasn't going to get into weaving. Really. I wasn't!

I didn't think it was right for me. It's a touch expensive, getting the starting equipment (although, really, haven't I spent about that much on knitting needles, crochet hooks, bags, cases, measuring devices, needles, etc...). But then I got this really nice gift certificate for Christmas, AND the store where I needed to spend said Certificate was having an ultra-rare 10% off everything (including looms!!) sale, AND I already got a bunch of lovely fiber and yarn for Christmas, so...

I have a loom!

I have a 20" Schacht Flip Loom that folds and slides right under my bed. It came today in the mail and I most maturely restrained myself from squeeling with glee, ripping open the box and playing with it all afternoon. Instead I let out a tiny happy yelp and put the box aside for a couple of hours to get other things done. Then, with restraint, I had my daughter come and assist me in unwrapping and assembling the few parts that needed to be put together.

This evening, after dinner when everyone was happy, I gave it a go at warping. It was easy! Of course, a lot of things are easy when you throw math to the wind and just give it a try. I figured I didn't care what I got out of my first project and I'd just warp it willy-nilly (but following the instructions) and see what happened.

Here it is!

I used yarn I had no intention of ever knitting. I bought the white yarn for.. Um. I don't know what I bought the white yarn for. The brown yarn was for the "Hilton of Cadbol" pillow, and would have been horrible for it. But I held onto it long enough I couldn't really return the ball and it has been sitting in my shelf every since, lonely and sad.

Now the two are taking shape as a.. um. A table runner. Or a placemat. Or maybe a bag. Really, it's probably a rag or trash. But it's learning!

Some of the things I've learned already:

• Warping is not as hard as it sounded
• A "pick" (one pass through the warp) is not like a row of knitting. If you miss a strand, you just back up. If you don't like the way the selvedge is, you just back and pull it through again. If you don't like the way you beat it into the cloth, you do it again. This takes no time at all and far less effort than it takes to tink a row of knitting.
• Within 30 rows, my selvedges were visibly more even, and so was my beating. In fact, there is obvious improvement in the 30min I played at weaving.
• There is nothing to fear about getting complicated. See the white stripe in the warp? It wasn't hard. Seriously. How long do you think I've been doing this? I'll give you three guesses. The first two don't count.
• I can't wait to cut this off the loom (OMG, CUTTING YARN, AIEEE) and start a new project
• Unlike a handspinner and knitter, I must overcome my fear of cutting yarn. I'm gonna have to cut yarn. A lot.

So all in all, this is pretty cool. I'll keep you updated when I start something new. Of course, since this is an at-home activity, and I still have lots of knitting to do, I can't say I'll be doing a ton. But I'm sure Weaving is about to sneak its way firmly into my blog.