Random thoughts of a fiber enthusiast - mostly fiber related, sometimes coherent

Month: November 2003

Photos!

Not much to update, except that I finally pulled all the pictures off of the old digital camera. Sigh. I really have to finish unpacking those boxes and finish putting the office together.

Anyhoo, we have pictures, and more pictures!

Okay, remember these rovings that I bought at the NwRSA conference? Well, they now look like this …

skeins on drying rack

These were navajo plied. And I have about 1100 yards of this loveliness. I bought some Cascade 220 in a dark green heather to go with it. I’ve decided to make a sweater vest for Martin using the Seaweed vest from Sweaters from Camp.

Swatch for Martin's VestThe color stripes will consist of fewer rows, since the vest will be knitted in the round. Hopefully, it will look much more subtle. I noticed while I was spinning this next to the pond, that the yarn is the color of the pond, with all the colors of the plant life, in their varying stages of the life cycle, from new to dying leaves. That was when I decided that something marine related would be best. Besides, what else would you make for a (former) marine biologist?

A few more finished projects. Here is the vest. I still haven’t blocked it, nor have I found the zippers yet, but here’s what it’s looking like these days, along with the finished Crusoe socks. Here’s proof that Martin is too familiar with my knitting projects. He didn’t even bat an eye lash when I told him it was the third sock I’ve knitted of this pair.

Finished Vest Carusoe Socks

Ooh! I mattress seamed the vest. It’s the first time I’ve successfully used mattress seam. I’ve always been disgusted with my efforts and ripped it out in favor of one of the other methods. Any methods. As long as it wasn’t mattress. I can see where being meticulous about counting your rows would come in handy (yes, I know it’s not necessary, but it does look a lot neater).

On the needles… a 3/4 sleeve raglan sweater with the yarn that I spun nearly a year ago. This will be the first sweater that I’m making with handspun. There is quite a bit of overspun in this yarn, and I can feel the little “knots” in the yarn, where the overspun single kinked up on itself in a hard little bump in the ply. Is there a term for this? It’s kind of yucky as it flows through my hand, but once knitted, you really can’t tell. The knitted fabric is still pretty soft. It’s one of those things that only I will know (and anyone who reads this blog) and it will probably bother me to no end every time I wear it. But hey! It’s a learning experience, right?

Yippee!

The endless I-cord edging on the vest is done! I need to block it, and find the zipper now. I also need to find some facing because the edges curl horribly. The I-cord edging helped a lot, and blocking will help more, but I’m not sure that blocking will fix it completely. So, I need to find a little grosgain ribbon and tack it in.

Now that the project is done, I’m quite pleased with it, especially since this is the fully my own design sweater. I’ve taken other sweater patterns, tweaked it here and there, changed the yarn, changed the gauge, but never completely from scratch. I’m happy. Just doing it that first time takes the fear away.

Anyway, I’m already thinking about ways of improving on this pattern. Most of it will make sense once I put a picture up this weekend. But …

  • I think a double knit collar would look better. Not only would it not curl, but the weight of it will make it lay when open. Also, it will add a little extra warm when you need to pull the zipper all the way up anyway.
  • I really needed 3 balls of contrast color, but the sale bin only had 2. So I edged the armholes with main color instead. The contrast would have looked better. (I could have resolved this if I did part of the pocket lining in main color instead of contrasting, but I didn’t want to do more intarsia — and I really had high hopes that I would have enough yarn. I was only about 30 yards short.)
  • I would like to figure out someway of keeping the piece from curling so much, but I really wanted the flatness of st st. I didn’t want any sort of patterned edging. I will need to explore this further.

All in all, I’m pretty pleased. The entire project used just a hair less than 8 balls of Jo Sharp, 6 of main color, 2 of contrast color. At $2/ball, not a bad price for a vest, eh?

I took a little time out from the I-cord and finished off that pesky second Crusoe sock. Now I have a matching pair.

I also started a new pair of ankle socks for Martin using some Opal that I picked up. I’m playing with the Strong Heel. I had turned the heel on it, and then decided that I didn’t like the fabric that it was giving me. I was worried about how the heel was going to wear. So, I ripped it out and started over with needles one size down. I’m now using US Size 0.

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