Heather Knits

I just finished spinning up some Manx Loghtan ( a rather funny looking sheep as you can see from that link). I bought the fibre from Wingham back in November and started spinning shortly after Christmas.

The fibre smelt quite rural, although that improved greatly after washing the finished yarn and is quite hairy, producing a fairly hairy and slightly lumpy yarn.

I spun a 3ply and got 346m from 121g (the non-round number of grams is because if you go up to Wingham, then rather than buying fibre per 100g for most of the different types of wool you select a plastic bag and stuff in as much as you would like from an enormous coil of combed top, then pay for the weight you have got. I was aiming for slightly over 100g to allow me plenty to play with), in about a DK weight.

It has come out as quite a soft and bouncy yarn, though not as soft as Merino or Bluefaced Leicester. I am enjoying experimenting with different breeds of wool and seeing how they behave. In hindsight I didn’t put quite enough twist into the singles which meant that they drifted apart a few times as I was plying. All a learning experience, I will know for next time.  The finished yarn seems fine though and not too delicate. I am looking forward to knitting with it! It is going to be part of my Handspun Leaves Waistcoat, which I must get a move on with, it has been languishing on top of my speakers recently (yes there is yarn or fibre on every surface in this house!).

As I mentioned in the previous post I missed the first half-day of Unravel due to being stuck in the US. This was a bit of a last minute trip, booked only the week before we went out there. Paul was sent out for a work trip, and I went along for the first week so I could go and see my sister Annie.

The travelling was also the reason behind the hastily cast-on portable projects. I didn’t take the jumper with me as I didn’t want to risk it being either confiscated or lost by the airline. We were staying in New Jersey, a 1 hour train ride from New York, so that gave me a good bit of knitting time on the journeys into and out of the city on the days I went to see Annie.

While we were there we did a mix of typical touristy visiting, and helping Annie and her husband Andy move into their new appartment and generally hanging out with them.

On the tourist front we went down to Brooklyn and walked back to Manhattan over the Brooklyn bridge, you can see the bridge in the background here behind Paul, Annie and Andy.

And we went to Thomas Edison’s factory and house in Orange, New Jersey (this is his house).

The house was interesting, and the factory definitely worth visiting. Edison was a man with many interests.

On my last day going in to the city Annie and I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I have been once before about 12 years ago, and was keen to see it again. It is a fascinating museum and I am looking forward to going again next time we go out to visit them.

As well as all the wonderful exhibits (including a whole temple from what is now the site of the Aswan dam) they have fantastic tiled mosaics on the floors in the Greek and Roman art section. There are 8 different mosaics, 4 circular, and 4 square. I love symmetrical patterns like these, particularly tiling patterns. I am hoping to do something on symmetry for my City and Guilds Diploma course (the Diploma is the course after the Certificate course I am currently doing), and so am collecting inspiring images.

As you can spot here one of the mosaics is in twice to make a nice grid.

We had a great time visiting the city and seeing Annie and Andy again, and were really lucky with the weather at the start of the week. It was colder than home, but warmer than New York had been the previous week, and lovely and sunny. Unfortunately after the first three days the rain started, and on the day I was due to come home it snowed all day and then there were high winds in the evening, so finally after attempting to take off once my plane was cancelled and we were all rescheduled to the day after. The next day was much better weather-wise and although we were a bit delayed it all went fairly smoothly, and I even managed about three hours sleep on the plane (this is quite good for me, I am not a very good traveller).

My travel socks are motoring along, although they have been abandoned now I am home in favour of the jumper. Pictures of knitting will come soon!

I spent a fabulous weekend helping out at the Unravel festival of knitting at the Maltings in Farnham. It has wiped me out a bit though, hence why it has taken me til today to sort out my thoughts and photos.

I was helping out with the Surrey Knitting Group, answering people’s knitting queries, knitting flowers (actually I failed miserably to knit any myself, but I did help other people with the patterns), and demonstrating how to knit socks (or any other small circumference bit of circular knitting) on one long circular needle. And also helping with the West Surrey Guild of Spinners, Weavers, and Dyers, demonstrating spinning and helping people to have a go themselves.

Here is our little corner, with a display of members work in the background.

I had been hoping to be able to help with the set up but was unfortunately stuck in New Jersey on Friday at the crucial time, and only made it back by Saturday lunchtime (more on that in the next post!).

There were more exhibitors than last year, and a very good range of interesting things to look at and buy. I noticed an emphasis this year on natural dyeing and undyed yarns and fibres, and it was great to see some raw fleece and rare breeds too. There were a few stands selling equipment, I think two or three doing spindles, and one doing wheels. It would have been nice to see more, but then this is still a very new festival and still finding its feet. There were two very nice looking button stands, Jenny Stacy had buttons made with fimo, I am definitely inspired to have a go at making some when I next finish a project which needs buttons, and Textile Garden had some very interesting buttons including beautiful wooden and metal ones.

We had a good number of volunteers on the stands this year, meaning that we had enough people to cope at busy times, and at quieter times we all got the opportunity to have a quick look round the rest of the exhibition and make a few purchases. I was partially saved from myself on this front by John Arbon doing such a roaring trade that when I went back on Sunday morning for some lovely merino / alpaca fibre I had seen on Saturday they had all sold out. I did manage to get a nice little spindle, I don’t know what make it is as it was unlabelled, but it weighs 35g and seems to spin very nicely. I surprised myself by enjoying it more than I thought I would.

I also got some yummy fibre from Fyberspates.

First 100g of green and blue Falkland.

And the piece de resistance, 100g of Sparkle, 63% merino, 20% silk, 15% nylon, 2% silver. Unfortunately my poor photography doesn’t really capture the sparkle terribly well, but it is there, and is sparkly

I had a great time at the show, and have nearly caught up on my sleep now. Lots to look at, and lots of interesting and keen people to talk to, some of whom hopefully might come along to the knitting or spinning group. Roll on next year!

I think Dawn is a bad influence. No sooner have I read about her casting on a multitude of portable projects, that I find myself following her lead.

The latest project is Haruni, a little shawl.

I am using 3.5mm needles, and my first attempts at spinning laceweight. As you can see I haven’t got very far yet

The jumper has become a bit difficult to haul around, so for the last couple of weeks I have been stuck with no travel knitting. I had been resisting casting on anything new, for fear that it would slow down the jumper progress. The frustration of not having any knitting to take with me has worn me down and I have cast on for a sock, with strict instructions to myself to only knit on it when it is not possible to be knitting on the jumper.

The pattern is called circle socks, and the yarn is some 3ply handspun bluefaced leicester I dyed before spinning. My yarn is a bit thicker than the yarn the pattern used so I am using 2.75mm needles rather than the 2.25mm recommended. I am not altering the stitch count (yet) though because I would like these to come out larger than the pattern. My foot measures about 10 inches in circumference, but the pattern is written for 7.5 inches.

I have tinkered a bit with the cast on to make sure it is stretchy enough, I cast on 96 sts, then worked a round of purl, a round of (p1, p2tog), then another round of purl, and then went onto round 4 of the pattern.

I did have a bit of a false start with these. My first guess at needle size was 2.5mm, but the fabric was coming out a bit too stiff! There is a fine line between a sturdy sock and something which stands up on its own, and these were on the wrong side of it! The 2.75mm needles seem much better.

The recipients of these two elephants have been born! Polly and Emma were born on Monday. Congratulations Jenny and Chris!

The second sleeve is now finished to the armhole.

Here is the view along the top of the sleeve.

And the underneath.

Back to the body now. There are only about 30 rows to go before I join the sleeves into the body and start working on the yoke!

I have a stinking cold today so am hoping that nice bright knitting will be a good antidote.

World of Wool had a 10% off everything January sale which I didn’t quite manage to resist. These lovely goodies arrived last week.

First 200g of 70% Bluefaced leicester, 30% tussah silk.

I am planning to dye this and then experiment with spinning some 3ply for socks I think.

Next 200g of 70% 23 micron merino, 30% tussah silk.

Again I am planning to dye this and spin some 3ply for socks. I am interested to compare it to the bfl and see how they differ in taking the dye, spinning and how well they wear as socks.

I am hoping that the silk will add strength to the wool, but without drastically reducing the elasticity. That is the plan at any rate, we shall see!

Lastly I got 300g of 70% 18.5 micron merino, 30% mulberry silk.

This is the supersoft version of the other merino / silk mix.

I think I will try spinning this one first and then dyeing it. I think I will try and spin a 2ply lace weight, and then make it into some kind of a shawl. I am hoping that writing my thoughts down here I will remember what I was thinking of doing with it all by the time I get round to spinning and knitting it!

In a bid to expand my fibre knowledge I have just received some lovely North Ronaldsay fibre from Scottish Fibres. This is the breed of sheep from North Ronalsay in the Orkney Islands, which lives on the outskirts of the island and eats seaweed. It is a nice soft fibre, although not the smoothest. I think it will make quite a hairy textured yarn.

I have 200g in white, and 200g in brown. The plan is to spin them up separately, then dye the white (although I’m not sure what colour yet), then knit a hat in the two colours. There was an interesting double layer hat in a fairly recent issue of Spin Off that I thought looked quite interesting.

I have finished elephant number ten, the last elephant for a while. No more of my friends are allowed to have children for a while, I am feeling a bit elephanted out.

I used Opal 6ply again. This yarn has a vast number of metres on a 150g ball. I have managed to knit two elephants and a camel out of one ball and there is still some left over!

I used 3mm needles again. This yarn is a little thinner than the Patons yarn I used for some of the elephants, and could probably have been made on 2.75mm needles for a slighly smaller animal, though he would have been harder to stuff then. The pattern (in case you can possibly have forgotten) is Elijah.