Historic Fibers

Bad Pun Alert

I ripped back the offending 5 inches on the Scotland Sweater, and it nearly kilt me! Heh. But first, I checked with Our Lady of the Fair Isle, Marina, and made absolutely sure that switching the colors could not be blocked out (it can't), and I also appreciated Margene's gentle reminder that "it's the process"!

I spent a couple of days trying to avoid the ripping, but much as I am enjoying the Origami mittens as a short attention span project, they just didn't give me the sense of accomplishment that Scotland did. I'm also working on a design project, inventing a pattern for a felted bike bag, and that is a bit frustrating since I've made two prototypes so far and I'm not entirely happy yet. It's coming along, but is not exactly right. So I consoled myself with the thought that I had enjoyed knitting those doomed 5 inches, and now I get to enjoy them all over again! Rrrrip!

I'm nearly back to where I was before I had to rip, and it looks so much better now that the colors are back where they should be. I've never shown you the buttons I found for that sweater, so I'll show them now to celebrate the rebirth of the Scotland Sweater:

The sawtooth pattern on the sweater is supposed to represent thistles, so I found buttons with stylized thistles and leaves, and I love them. The thought of placing those buttons on a finished sweater is keeping me going!

Origami

I have a new take-along project - the (rav link) Origami Mittens! This pattern has an interesting history for me, since it was invented by Ileana Grams, who was married to Bob Moog, the inventor of the Moog synthesizer. I first learned of the pattern from my brother-in-law, Brian (co-author of Recording the Beatles and the newly-released Kaleidoscope Eyes) who was a good friend to Bob Moog until his death in 2005, and he continues to be in touch with Ileana.

Ileana wrote a lengthy and very detailed description of how to make these mittens, and her pattern was published as part of a charity knitting supplement in INKnitters magazine in 2002. The published pattern is nicely laid out and photographed, but the instructions themselves were heavily edited. If Brian hadn't send me a scan of the original instructions, I don't think I could have figured it out.

Anyway, this is a great pattern and I've been having a lot of fun with it. It is basically garter stitch squares constructed in an interesting way:

They don't look much like a pair of mittens, do they? This is when you get to the "origami" part. The mittens are folded up and seamed, and suddenly you have a mitten hand:

Stitches are picked up for the thumb, and later for the wrist ribbing. I am working on a full tutorial for this pattern, because it is a great project for using up odd bits of yarn, and it's easier to figure out when you have step-by-step photos. I've been having an especially good time playing with different color schemes and thinking about how to embellish the mittens, since those color blocks are just perfect for adding embroidery or tiny buttons or whatever you can imagine!

Each square uses very little yarn, and the knitting itself is fairly mindless, which makes it perfect for a take-along project. I had to take the Prius in for its 5000 mile check-up last week, and got a whole mitten nearly done! I'm using the leftover yarn from the Wild Stripes baby blanket, and have lots of other bits of different weights of yarn to work through. I'll likely donate the finished mittens to a worthy charity.

What started out as a curiosity based on a family connection has turned into quite an enjoyable project!

Wheels

We had a rather exciting weekend, since we had a visitor in Davis from the US Bicycling Hall of Fame. This was another step on a long-term project that Dan has been working on for years now, and since it is now public knowledge, I can talk about it.

The city of Davis, where we live, is a bike-crazy town. Everyone owns bikes and rides bikes. A common topic of conversation is what you are riding and how you like it. The University acquired a stupendous collection of antique bicycles some years ago, and recent efforts at establishing a bicycle museum have been making headway. Then Dan noticed last year that the Bicycling Hall of Fame is looking for a new home, and he was off to the races. He has engaged the University and the City to supporting creating a new home for both Davis's fantastic collection and the Hall of Fame. Davis was awarded the honor of hosting the Hall of Fame's Induction Ceremony this year, and so this weekend, the Hall of Fame's Vice President, Dawn, came out to have a look at the facilities and the plans that had been made so far for the November event.

Dan spent the weekend squiring Dawn around town to meet our local luminaries and see the arrangements that have  been made. I got to attend a couple of informal gatherings and really enjoyed meeting Dawn. She is a very enthusiastic cyclist, and she sparked a renewal of my interest in cycling. Since I am still very much a beginner and really can't go very far distances on a bike (I mostly ride to the grocery store and run errands by bike), Dawn spent some time talking over my goals to build my cycling stamina and gave me some good advice. She also promised that when she comes back later in the year, she and I will go for a ride together. So I am committed to following through on my "training plan" - really, I'm not planning on entering any races or anything, but I just want to be more comfortable on a bike. Yesterday, I rode 3 miles. I'll do some yoga today to work out the kinks, and I'll ride 3 more tomorrow.

In the process of thinking about what I need to know to be a better cyclist, I really drew on lessons that I've learned from spinning. In spinning, one of the most important things I have learned, and continue to learn, is how to adjust my equipment so the wheel is doing the work. I had a talk with Dan about bicycle gears, since I've never really understood that before, and had an AHA! moment when we started talking about ratios.

In spinning, typically you want to use high ratios (i.e., you want every push of the treadle to result in multiple spins of the wheel) when you are making high twist yarn or when you are spinning very short fibers like cotton. Here is where I adjust the ratios on my wheel:
The band is on the middle whorl right now, which is my standard setting. I would move it to the smallest whorl for higher ratios, and would move it to the larger whorl if I were spinning thick or low twist yarn, because that would mean the wheel would spin fewer revolutions for each push of the treadle. I would use the higher ratios to save myself having to treadle so much to get more twist.

In cycling, it's pretty much the same idea. I know this has been explained to me before, but I never really got it until I had the spinning comparison. Here is where the ratios get adjusted on my bicycle:
Using my gear shift levers, I can change to higher ratios (the bicycle wheels spin more for each peddle push) and this makes me go faster. It also means I'm pedaling harder. I can use lower ratios when speed isn't an issue, and that means I'm pedaling more to move around, but the pedaling actually feels easier.

This may not be the most scintillating reading for you all, but it was a very important realization for me! I'm so happy to have a great cycling mentor to get me motivated, just as I have benefited from having knitting, spinning, dyeing, and weaving mentors to motivate my fiber feats. Tomorrow, I ride (and spin!).

Lace Edged Raglan: The Photo Shoot

I have more photos of the Lace Edged Raglan actually being worn, just to prove it really fits! Ignore my hair, please. There seems to be a law (applying only to me, of course) that photo shoots can only take place on Bad Hair Days.

The pattern for this sweater is in the Fall 2003 Interweave Knits, and I used Rowan Calmer in Khaki on US8 needles. Modifications: I took about 1 inch off the body length, shortened the sleeves by about 2 inches, overlapped the side vents just because it worked better that way, did the button bands before the neck ribbing (personal preference), and lengthened the neck and wrist ribbing to measure about 1 inch. I also added grosgrain ribbon facing to the button bands. Thanks to Dan and Cheddar for their assistance with the photos!

Wanna Trade?

I had been meaning to buy a particular book for ages, and just never got around to it. When I saw the book, I was feeling poor or something else was a priority, and now the book has gone out of print. Boo hoo.

So before I go broke buying the book at out of print prices, I thought I'd throw this out there. Do you have a copy of Norsk Strikkedesign that you aren't using? Perhaps you have multiple copies and can spare one of them. If so, I have several items I can offer in trade.

I have good quality copies of the following books (these are multiples from my library). If you would like to trade, choose any combination of these books:

Su Grierson, The Colour Cauldron: The History and Use of Natural Dyes in Scotland
Jamieson's Shetland Knitting Book 1
Elizabeth Zimmerman, Knitting Workshop
Joyce Williams, Latvian Dreams
Inger Fredholm, Knitting With a Smile: 36 original Swedish Knitting Patterns
Nancy Bush, Folk Socks
Alice Starmore, The Celtic Collection (hardcover)

PLUS I also have 5 vintage pattern booklets (in various conditions - these are old so they aren't all like new):
Cardigans and Pullovers by Beehive, 1940s
Lux Knitting Book, 1938
Bernat Handicrafter no. 57 (no date)
Minerva Ladies Staple Sweaters, 1942
Movie Star Hand Knits for Men, 1940

If you see anything you might like in trade, please email me and we'll work out the details. Or if you have a copy you'd like to sell at a reasonable price, or if you have a copy you would like to trade and are looking for yarn or roving, again, email me. Hey, I'm flexible. Thanks!

Miss Steek

Well, I've finished the Lace Edged Raglan sweater, and have some photographic evidence. The LER is being modeled by an obliging chair since I've never mastered the art of taking photographs of myself:

The sweater fits, and I think I found very nice buttons for it as well. I'm sure I will get a lot of wear from this sweater, and will try to get Dan to take some model shots soon.

I even got all persnickety and put grosgrain ribbon linings in the button bands. It was a little fussy around the buttonholes, but it turned out well enough and I like the extra body that the ribbon provides so that the button bands don't pull:

So there I was, a successful finished sweater project all ready to go. And I have to admit, I got a little cocky. I decided to delve back into the interminable UFO, the Scotland Sweater. This sweater project has been sitting for probably a year, and I really do like the sweater, but it does take some concentration to knit. But as I said, I was flush with sweater success and was ready to tackle Scotland.

So I knit and knit for a couple of weeks, and finished up about 5 inches. I think I had put the sweater aside because I was nearing the sleeve steeks and I wasn't quite sure how to do those, despite having at least 6 books at close hand that tell me exactly how to manage it. I got to those sleeve steeks, pulled down a couple of books, and put in the steeks, no problem. What on earth had been scaring me about those? It was no big deal. I have been shooting for 3 rounds per night, but last night I really got on a roll and did about 8 rounds. I laid the sweater out to admire my lovely work, and noticed something . . . odd. Let's see if you can spot it from an admittedly terrible photograph:

I'll give you a hint by telling you that the upper portion is not in shadow. But it looks like it is, because the dark color is more prominent than the light color on top. Meaning I switched the colors I was carrying in each hand when I took this project back up after its hiatus. This is a cardinal no-no in Fair Isle knitting, and for very good reason. So on the bottom half of the sweater, the light color is more prominent, and on the top the dark color is more prominent. I don't think this is something that can be fixed with blocking, so I'm afraid (and oh, I hate to even think it) I will have to rip out that hard-wrung 5 inches and switch the colors. Maybe next year?

I'll Be Darned

I mentioned a while ago that I was spinning some silk, and then I was planning to card up some sort of matching batts to make a yarn that was one ply silk, and one ply wool (mostly merino). The yarn is done, and I am stunned.

It took forever to spin the silk, took a while longer to card the wool, then another while longer to spin it, and then it took 2 days of plying (!) to get it all done. I had to stop plying after 3 hours on the first day because my leg was cramping up, and I kept thinking, dang, am I plying really slow here? Because it doesn't seem like that much yarn, but this is taking forever.

Here is a bobbin of the silk, surrounded by the wool that I had planned to card:

And here is a bobbin of the silk singles and a bobbin of the wool singles, surrounded by the wool that I carded:

It should be noted that I still have a lot of the wool left to spin, since I went a little crazy carding and did about 8 ounces.

And here (ta da) is the almost finished yarn:

Here it is in the skein (photo cropped to avoid showing how filthy my kitchen counter is!):

If you click on the pictures and look closely, you can see how one ply is shiny and the other is not. It's subtle, but will look really nice in a knitted garment when it catches the light.

I still need to wet finish this, so it's not quite done yet. Okay, back to my being stunned. While I was skeining this, I started noting that this was pretty fine yarn (fine meaning the weight). I expected to get maybe 400 yards of fingering, and ended up getting a whopping 746 yards total, which explains why it took me so long to ply it. Then I had to weigh it, because I thought I started with 4 ounces of silk, and I know I carded about 8 ounces of wool and used less than half of it.

The 746 yards weigh in at 3.8 ounces, which means a) I had less silk than I thought and b) I spun a laceweight yarn without being aware of it. Well, I'll be darned.

Dye Do-Over

I redyed the Irish wool, and am happy with the way it turned out. After fussing over how much synthetic dye I had on hand, I finally broke down and ordered more, because I really didn't want to have to dye this a third time. I weighed the wool into two equal dye lots and mixed up the dye and divided it for each pot. Here is the before:

This was done with natural dyes, and while I love natural dyes, they aren't as predictable as synthetics. So for the next round, it was synthetic all the way. Here is the after:

Much, much better. Still not a deep burgundy, but a nice deep rich red that I can definitely live with. And here is one more shot, since the first photo was taken in the shade:

That's more like it. When you have 1400 yards of wool and it weighs a hefty 2 pounds, you know it is going to be outerwear. At least in my climate, it is definitely going to be outerwear. And I have a plan for this, but it will need to wait a bit. I can't even contemplate knitting Aran weight wool in the summer.

I also overdyed some cotton sock yarn with natural dyes:

From top to bottom, we have madder, lac, and cutch. I actually like the way all of these colors work together, but they will likely be semi-solid cotton socks since stranding cotton yarn kind of defeats the point of knitting with cotton in the first place.

I have some other plans for dyeing, but have cones of yarn to skein before I get going, so this pretty much completes the dyeing for the time being.

Funky

I have finished the Bellatrix socks knit from my very own handdyed Clown Barf cotton sock yarn! I found an old photo of the yarn freshly dyed:

See, it did look better in the skein! They are good colors, but once wound into a ball, there is a lot going on. Generally, I would choose a very simple pattern for such a busy yarn, but the Bellatrix pattern really worked with this yarn, and I really love the results:

Yes, there is flashing and pooling! Yes, there is a big spiral of lime green on one foot, and not on the other! But you have to admit, these socks have funk. Of course, they are better in person (I'm wearing them right now), and once again I bemoan my limited photography skills.

The Lace Edged Raglan is nearing completion, with a snag. I seamed the sweater pieces together over the weekend, and I must say I did a rock star job on the seaming. It is absolutely perfect,  but then because this is a pieced raglan, the seaming had to be absolutely perfect for it to look right. I still have to pick up the borders and do the button bands, and I did indeed go to the fabric store and found The Perfect Buttons, along with some grosgrain ribbon to line the button bands.

The sweater fits, but one thing is bugging me. In the back, the center of the back portion rides up a bit - not much, just a bit. I believe it is my stoop-shouldered scholarly stance that is throwing things off. I know that I could add a couple of short rows to the upper back and that would offset my round shoulders and allow the back to hang properly. But there is the dilemma. The sweater is perfectly seamed. I would have to rip out at least two of the seams, unpick the woven in ends, and rip back a few rows to add the short rows, then reseam and hope that it all works out. I think I'll work a short row swatch first and make sure I can do it well so that it won't be glaringly obvious, and that will decide me on whether to go for it or not. Adding the weight of the border at the bottom and reblocking might just as easily fix the problem, but I'll do a swatch and decide.

I am happy to have funky (in the good sense) socks, but would rather avoid a funky-fitting sweater!