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I have like, a ton of FOs and WIPs to post about but instead, I will show you the pretties I bought at the Uniquities Fiber Farmers’ Market today. Just a bit ago, actually. OH DAMN did I buy a lot of things. My bank account is weeping, especially since I won’t be working for like three weeks. But so many pretty things. So much new fiber.
Solitude Leicester fiber in this COMPLETELY GORGEOUS emerald. 4 oz.
Solitude art batt, 1.5 oz. I bought one of these at the last market and it spun up into a super fun yarn. Now I have more!
8 oz. Romney wool. The vendor did not include a card and my memory sucks, but I’m pretty sure it’s from Wool N Quilts. There might be bamboo in here; I don’t recall.
8 oz. Romney/bamboo, same vendor as above. GORG.
4.5 oz. wool/mohair/glitz/other things maybe from Feederbrook Farms.
4 oz. bfl/glitz/something else maybe? also from Feederbrook Farms. The glitz doesn’t really show up in the photo, but this is beautiful. I love grey and I adore BFL.
Avalon Springs targhee/alpaca/mohair/glitz. I made a bee-line for the Avalon Springs booth. I bought some of this roving there last time and the prep is AMAZING. It spins like butter. And is gorgeous. Colorway’s called Dragon Scale.
Same as above. This colorway is Spellbound. It’s so pretty.
4 oz. merino from Dancing Leaf. I bought a batt from them last time but they didn’t have any this time. They did have gorgeous fiber. This chunk of gorgeous wool was only $12. For hand painted merino!
4 oz. BFL, also from Dancing Leaf. God I love BFL.
So that’s my haul. I spent… um, a lot of money. And later tonight I’m going out with friends in Old Town Alexandria for some drinking/company. Truthfully though, this is a TON of fiber for the money I spent. The prices for what I bought were all SUPER reasonable. And this haul’s got nothing on what I’m going to spend at MDSW this year (cause I’m local and TOTALLY GOING). Oh my goodness, I’m going to spend SO MUCH MONEY there. Mostly fiber probably cause I’ve got a ton of yarn already.
It’s going to take ages to spin this up on my spindles. Which is AWESOME. Fiberrrrrrrrr. *pets*
Sooooo I finished knitting up that new design I was talking about the other day! And it is way too hot for modeled shots, so enjoy these pictures on my yarn-themed mannequin head.
Pattern: Slip Stitch Hat, currently in testing. Needs a new name. Suggestions?
Yarn: Cascade Eco (light grey), Plymouth Galway (dark grey), recycled wool (cream), recycled wool hand-dye (pink), Valley Northampton (purple), and KP Wool of the Andes (light purple cast off row). Basically, scraps.
Needles: US 6/4 mm dpns and circular
So I’m pretty pleased with how these hats came out, especially the grey one. The pink/purple one is just a tick too short (I ran out of yarn and couldn’t make it any longer), so I will have to find a recipient with a smaller head than mine (shouldn’t be too hard; my head is 22″ around). The grey one fits perfectly and I adore it. ADORE.
I was flipping through a stitch dictionary the other day and found one called “Joyous Stripes”, which I’ve adapted to this hat here. And let me tell you, it is PERFECT for using up scraps. I may make another with rainbow colors provided I can find some more of some colors (maybe I’ll just dye some). Also, super warm. The stitch pattern makes the hat pretty dense so it should keep the wind out.
In other knitting news, I am thisclose to finishing the Ivy sockettes, which means I am thisclose to starting a new pair of socks (Skew, I think). I’m also plugging away on my Box 96 pullover, which I hope I can finish in time to wear in warm weather (I should; you know I knit like the wind). I keep meaning to pull out my sewing again so I can work on my blankets but I don’t really have a good place to put the machine, so it’s mostly knitting here.
So the boyfriend is in town so I haven’t been posting, but I have been knitting! Convinced the boyfriend to help me with photographs, so the sweater I was knitting for a WWFY swap is finished and ready to be mailed off to its rightful owner.
Pattern: Karlsro from Noro Book One
Yarn: Noro Silk Garden, seven skeins for the large
Needles: US 10.5 and 10, straights and KP options circular
Mods: None, knit as written
Despite the lack of clarity in the pattern (it’s not very well written and definitely not for beginners), Karlsro was a pretty easy knit and thanks to the huge gauge, knit up super quickly. It was mostly interesting enough to not be boring but simple enough that I didn’t have to concentrate.
This is obviously too big on me since I made a large and I am small, but it’s very stretchy. So I can sort of extrapolate how a small would fit. And since I get to keep the book the pattern is in, I can make another for myself, either in the Noro Kureyon I was sent for payment or in some recycled wool from an ENORMOUS brown sweater I got at the thrift.
As for the yarn: It wasn’t terrible. There was some VM and that was annoying. And there were a bunch of knots with color changes and that was annoying. But for the most part, the yarn did what I ecpected it would–it kinked up because it’s a single and the thickness varies quite a lot. But it’s reasonably soft and it does make a pretty sweater. Am I going to buy some for myself? Absolutely not. But I’m not racing to sell or trade the leftover either (though if you’re dying for four skeins of Silk Garden, we can discuss it).
My current knitting project is working on the Haruni I started a bit ago. I’m a couple rows into chart B. I also embroidered a thing, but I’m going to wait until I find a frame or big enough hoop before I photograph it.
GUYS GUYS GUYS I FINISHED ALL MY EXAMS FOR COLLEGE AND I’M GRADUATING IN A WEEK FROM TOMORROW. More on that later. Just so you know, expect my writing this week to be a little… less than perfect. Generally it’s safe to blame vodka but Thursday is Cinco de Mayo, so you should probably blame Tequila. Cause I’m DONE WITH COLLEGE and that means it is CELEBRATION TIME.
Anyway, In case you were wondering, I have been knitting. A little bit. Working on two pairs of Manly Aran socks in a row burnt me out a little bit, so I haven’t been doing as much knitting as I usually would. What I have been doing though is acquiring yarn at an alarming rate. Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Weren’t you just talking about graduating and don’t you not have a job or any money?” That would be correct; however, I already sort of had the yarn. Which is to say I had some sweaters.
As a poor/cheapskate college student, I like cheap things. You know what’s cheap? Thrift store sweaters. You know what thrift store sweaters are made of? YARN. I’ve had the sweaters for a while and have been on an unravelling binge. I haven’t weighed any of them yet, but suffice it to say there’s a lot of yarn here.
What exactly have I unraveled? So nice of you to ask!
There’s this Shetland wool sweater that I got at a Good Will outlet (1.20 a POUND, people). It had tags still on.
It frogged into a lovely laceweight, but Shetland is a very sticky wool, so I had to roll it into balls instead of onto the niddy noddy like I usually do.
There’s a 80/20 wool nylon mix, the perfect shade of white for dyeing:
Five skeins of fingering weight yarn that will probably become socks (though I’ll probably hold it two strands at a time for strength). The little skein is from the collar, which alone yielded 140 yards.
There’s a very shiny linen/cotton mix (60/40) from a large tank top:
About dk. Not sure how much for enough for a tank top and a sun hat, which is the goal. I’ll probably also dye this.
There’s this Talbot’s 100% silk pullover:
Silk, by the way, frogs like a DREAM. It’s super strong so it doesn’t break every couple of yards like the Shetland was wont to. Ton of lace weight yarn here. There’s another skein I can’t find, so pretend there’s three. I want to dye it and make a huge shawl out of some of it.
Finally, there’s the creme de la creme, three wonderful, beautiful, SOFT skeins of 100% cashmere:
Also lace weight but will probably be doubled or tripled for… something.
Sweaters, as you know, have a front, a back, and two sleeves (except for that tank top, which was a cardigan so it had a back and two fronts). But there’s only three skeins of silk and cashmere (well, the cashmere sweater had this weird tie front thing, but it gave four skeins and we’re pretending about the silk). With the second sleeve of the silk and part of a sleeve of the cashmere, I wound up one skein with the blend:
It’s going to be a bitch to wind since the yarns aren’t plied, just held together. But it makes for the loveliest combination of shiny and soft:
I’m probably going to dye most of these skeins before I work with them (maybe I’ll make some white socks). I’m still in frogging mojo, so I’m basically frogging down my entire thrift store sweater stash. I’m currently working on a wonderful Express sweater of lace weight merino/viscose/angora/cashmere. So soft. I’m thinking shawl.
None of these sweaters were over $5 and I’ve got easily over $100 worth of yarn here. The cashmere alone would probably be at least $50, and I paid $3.60 for the sweater. Truly, it makes my cheap thrifty heart sing.
I know what you’re thinking. “I didn’t know Brinn was spinning anything. Does she even do that any more?” I know. It appears that yes, I do in fact do that anymore. And the reason I didn’t mention it was because there was no time. On Saturday afternoon I spent some time by myself and decided I wanted to do some spinning. And not the thin solid colored singles I have on my smallest spindle. No. Big singles. To make big yarn. Or at least biggish yarn.
I wanted color. I pulled out this fiber, 4 oz of corriedale from Lakehouse Loft (on Artfire):
I grabbed my giant spindle.
I spun quickly, not paying attention to thickness or evenness. I just spun, figuring I’d ply it eventually. I spun for hours. I spun for like four hours. Then I took a brief break. Then I spun some more. I spun and spun. I went to bed. I woke up, ate lunch, and spun some more.
And then I plied because I finished the singles in less then two days of more or less continuous spinning. I plied and plied. My shoulder was hurting and my boyfriend was off at a choir concert I didn’t go to (he tells me not to; it’s a class requirement for him anyway, and anyway I am Not a Fan of choir) but I watched several episodes of series E of QI and kept plying.
And then it was plied. I skeined it up, threw it in a bath with a little wool wash, and smacked it on the table a little. Then I hung it over a chair under a vent to dry.
On Monday, I took pictures.
I spun four ounces of yarn to roughly worsted weight in two days. I made a two-ply yarn of about 140 yards in less than 12 hours. On my spindle. On my enormous spindle.
I think that’s quite an accomplishment.
So I finished that pullover I was working on. Mostly because I decided it was a vest.
Pattern: None, I made it up as I went.
Yarn: Plymouth Galway (grey) and a wool/acrylic mix I frogged from a thrift store sweater and overdyed from pastel pink to purple-ish.
Needles: US 7/4.5 mm
So yes, the striped pullover is now a striped vest. Which I may or may not write up a pattern for (I probably will). I really was going to knit a proper pullover with set-in sleeves and then I screwed up the armscye shaping, ending up with something like a racerback and the sleeves would have required some serious short rowing to fit in the holes. So I said “Fuck it!” and went with the vest.
Which I am actually very very pleased with. It’s hella cute over short-sleeved blouses and this way it won’t be so hot to wear indoors. Pullovers with sleeves are great when it’s 30F and I have to walk a mile to get to class but not so awesome when the inside temperature is like, 70. Yeah. So vest!
I can’t wait til the weather cools down and I can wear it with that blouse and some dark-wash skinny jeans. And my awesome cowboy boots. That is an outfit I will be ROCKIN’ in the winter time.
So my first week at school has been pretty busy, hence the lack of posting. That isn’t to say I haven’t been crafting–I have definitely been crafting. And organizing. My craft area sort of looks organized (which if you know me at all is something of an accomplishment). I’ve been busy knitting for swaps (and as I mentioned before, I started a sweater for me). I recently finished two items for an OWS claim:
Pattern: Mary Jane Slippers for what seems like the hundreth time.
Yarn: Vintage wool, which I’m trying desperately to use up since I’m not crazy about it.
Hook: 3.75 mm (f)
Mods: I don’t think any.
I’ve made this pattern so many times I sometimes forgot it’s not my pattern. I don’t usually repeat patterns and certainly not to the degree of this one, so I sometimes forget I’m not just makin’ it up. : )
Pattern: None; I knit the brim flat and picked up stitches for the top part of the hat.
Yarn: More of that vintage wool. I’m down to less than 50g I think.
Needle: US 7/4.5 mm
This yarn frustrates me (nothing wrong with it; I just don’t like the color and I had a lot of it), but I like how the hat came out. It’s cute. I love seed stitch. : ) Not much to say about it; it was pretty easy to make.
In other crafting news, I recently received a crap ton of fabric from an OWS claim, but I’m waiting on one more OWS package, so I’ll just show you all at once. I’m also knitting up some swatches for a WWYF swap (one in linen stitch ❤ and one in stockinette) for which I received a lovely shawl pin. I'll show you that when I show you the OWS stuff. I also recently finished a thing for a friend's birthday, which I will try to show you on Monday. It's super cute.
So I recently did some dyeing. With Kool Aid. Cause I had some yarn from some sweaters I frogged but I didn’t like the colors. First this, which was originally pastel pink (yuck):
This is a wool-acrylic blend (50/50 I think) from a cardigan I frogged. I’m still not thrilled with the color, but I figure with the high acrylic content, this is as good as it gets. And anyway, the dye took much better than I thought it would. I used… several packets of grape, I think.
I have a sweater quantity here (as it came from a sweater), but I think I’ll use about half of it in a striped pullover with some grey woool. It’ll tone down the pink, and I have a random craving to knit/have a striped pullover.
Next, there was this ugly yellow color that came from a zipper hoodie:
Again, a sweater quantity. Probably a light sport weight. This is 100% merino wool, so it took dye much better:
I wasted a bunch of blue Kool Aid before I figured out it wasn’t going to take up more dye without heat and then I got the hang of it. I dyed the base red and did some grape variation. Not sure what this will become (probably a sweater). I’ll let it marinate in the stash. I’m not complaining–the sweater was probably under two dollars (the thrift store where I bought is 1.59/pound for clothes) and the Kool-aid was probably about two bucks. making the total cost of a sweater quantity of yarn in a color I like about four dollars. Win.
While I have in fact been doing some knitting and spinning for me (sort of–the spinning may eventually turn into a gift), I have also been knitting for other people. Sort of. Like the mittens I made, I am working on socks for Will Work for Yarn trades. The first is a pair of Skew socks in Regia Nation Color. I finished one sock:
and started the other. In return for knitting them, I received three skeins of Aslan Trends Santa Fe (two in Jungle and one in World’s Ocean):
It’s pretty pretty–squishy and wonderful. : ) It’s a two-ply so I might have to do contrast heels and toes, but it does have nylon in it.
Once I finish the Skew socks, I have another pair lined up. I received these two skeins
of True Love Fiber hand dye in Further Under the Sea (for the trade socks) and Happy Lipstick (for me).
I’m not really sure what socks I’m going to knit for this trade because of the variegation in the yarn and because the person I’m trading with didn’t have a specific pattern in mind. It’ll be a couple days because I get to them because I have to finish the Skew socks first, so I have some time to think about it.
Welcome to Raglan month (well, April apparently was) and NaKniSweMoDo number six!
Pattern: Featherweight, mostly for the cast on number and divisions.
Yarn: Regia Silk sock yarn, two skeins in a lovely pale blue
Needles: US 5/3.75 mm
Mods: Clearly, shorter body and shorter sleeves and thicker yarn.
Okay, it looks a little funny on Elizabeth because her wide shoulders and tiny tiny waist make her distinctly apple shaped, but my proportions are more balanced, so it looks a lot better on me. I like it a lot, I have worn it a couple times already. I usually wear it open, like the first picture, though I often pin the bottom closed with a bobby pin or something. It’s a great layer over tanks and tubes (I’m awkwardly uncomfortable in tube tops even though I have a ton of them). The only problem is that the back section is a little too wide, and if I use this pattern again, I’ll cast on fewer stitches for the back section. I certainly don’t intend to knit Featherweight in lace weight again (oh god), but I could maybe use another little shrug like this ones. It’s totally casual–throw on and go–and that’s great.
Also: the yarn. It gets a bad rap on Ravelry for being pilly, and I wouldn’t make it into socks because of that, but as a shrug, this yarn is wonderful. It was such a joy to work with cause it’s SO SOFT. Plus, Regia is a pretty great company. So yes. Yarn love here.
Stitch, Brinn, Stitch! 