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fiber friday: kaleidescope

I always said that if Dave ever offered his hand painted fibers again, that would be one of the first thing I bought.

Cabin Cove Mercantile recently reopened for business and I filled up my cart with goodies!!

This is 4 ounces of 100% squishy merino in the Kaleidescope colorway. (I can’t resist a rainbow. ;-) )

The last fiber I bought a few years ago from the Mercantile is still in my stash. It’s that ‘beloved’ stash that sits there ’cause you don’t wanna to mess it up. Well, I’m a much better spinner now and make more yarn that I like than not.

I can’t wait to spin it all! :)

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FO: slouchy beret

This hat didn’t quite come out the way I’d hoped. (Katie’s Beret by Through The Loops)

The brim fits fine but the hat is hugely slouchy and looks more like a mushroom than a hat.

This was a fun knit but I don’t think the yarn is meant for this project. I may rip this out and try something else. I do have a total of 750 yards. I think I have an idea of what might suit this yarn better.

Stay tuned. :)

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FO: elemental hat II

There’s been a flurry of finishing here at saffronknits… here’s one!

I finished the elemental hat! It was a fun mindless knitting project.

The yarn went from the stripey-ness to more barberpole at the top. Next time I make yarn like this, I’ll work to keep the stripey-ness throughout the whole yarn.

I think I want to make another one! :)

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in transition

It’s finished!

(Started: July 2010; Finished: November 25, 2010.)

I originally thought it was closer to fingering weight while I was spinning it, but now that it’s done, it’s more like lace weight. It’s approx. 840 yards.

It’s from The Painter Tiger fiber club – about 5 ounces of Corriedale, a gradient from pink to coral.

I call it ‘In Transition’.

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picking up where I left off

I recently pulled out a hat that had been languishing. (It’s Katie’s Beret by Through The Loops.) I’d started it in April and had begun the decreases and somehow my stitch count was off. Discouraged, I put it aside.

I’d even considered ripping it out but when I picked it up recently, I saw how much work I’d put into it and how good it looked and I just couldn’t do it. So, I figured out what the problem was and began working on it again.

The yarn is amazing. It’s the colorway ‘Cobalt Passion’ in sport weight superwash Merino by Spincerely Yours. I even went back and bought a 2nd skein in case I wanted to make something matchy-matchy.

But first? Finish The Hat! :)

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ever had one of those days?

Recently, I re-discovered a pattern that I had in my ravelry library – Chickadee Cowl – a free pattern by Through The Loops. It’s been in my library for a while but I just realized that I had the perfect yarn for it.

Three skeins of Zitron’s Loft Color – a bulky single in 100% Merino. A dear friend sent me this yarn from Germany and I had yet to find the pattern(s) for its use.

The Chickadee cowl looked perfect – so I cast on…

#1 – I misread the instructions and used wrong size needle, despite casting on the correct number of stitches…

#2 – Found the right size needles (DPNs) – counted stitches three times and somehow by row 2, stitch count was off…

#3 – Please see #2…

#4 – Found comparable size circular needle to cast on with – again, by row two, ‘easy’ stitch pattern not matching up.

At that point, all was ripped out, needles shoved back in the case and yarn thrust back in the bag and put (not so gently) out of sight.

Mama never said there’d be days like THIS!

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got stripes?

I do! See??

OMG! I’m in love with this scarf! It’s inspired by the Noro Striped Scarf on the BrooklynTweed blog and the Pass-through scarf.

I can’t put it down. When I working some of my other knitting project (which I love as well), this project is like my reward. Currently, it is over 62 inches long and I only have a little bit of yarn left. :D

I’m using two skeins of my handspun that is sock/sport weight with size 3 needles. (I put rubber bands on the ends of a couple of DPN and it works great!). I cast on 55 stitches (1×1 rib +1), changing colors every 4 rows and am carrying the yarn up the side.

I learned and used a ‘new’ cast-on just as I finally got the stitch count for the width I wanted. It’s the Reversible Contenintal/Long-tail cast-on. I had gotten Knitting Daily TV series 300 DVD set from the library and was kinda listening and looking up occaisionally but when Eunny Jang demonstrated this cast on in episode 303, I sat up and paid attention.

I found a tutorial of it on YouTube (but if you can see the DVD with Eunny Jang, I highly recommend it).

Continental and Reverse Continental Cast-on for 2-2 ribbing

I used this cast-on for this scarf and I really like how it looks.

Ok… gotta go … must … knit … more … stripes!!!

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alas, my poor handspun shawl

Don’t think I’ve forgotten about my handspun shawl. I truly haven’t. I had been hoping to spin more yarn for it. I’ve got one bobbin done and the 2nd is barely started.

But when I pulled the shawl out of the drawer, I discovered holes. YES! Some little bug chewed holes in my shawl over the summer! I had some other woolens in the same drawer and it seems the bug(s) have discriminating taste as they only went for the merino. (Yes, they went for my blue dream in color socks as well. :( )

So, I will have to rip this out. There’s not a lot of holes, but there’s no way to repair it so I basically would have to knit it again and compensate for the broken yarn (and keep it in a plastic bag).

Despite this reality, I can’t bring myself to rip it out… yet. *le sigh* :(

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playing with depth of field … and yarn

A while ago I bought a Chevron Mitten Kit from Knitterly Things, but I never really took good photos of the yarn.

I’ve been thinkings of knitting this pattern recently so I pulled the yarn out to get some shots and ended up having a little fun with depth of field and having different areas in focus. (If you wanna ignore all the camera talk and go right to the pictures, I understand. It makes my head hurt sometimes. :roll: )

(According to Wikipedia, depth of field of an image is “the portion of a scene that appears acceptably sharp in the image”. So basically, the smaller the f/ number, the smaller the area in focus.)

I shot these at ISO 400 with my 50mm lens, but because my camera doesn’t have a full sensor, it represents as 80mm.

Shutter speed: 1/20 sec
Aperture: f/4.5

Shutter speed: 1/200 sec
Aperture: f/1.8

Shutter speed: 1/10 sec
Aperture: f/8

Shutter speed: 1/8 sec
Aperture: f/8

Shutter speed: 1/60 sec
Aperture: f/2.8

This one is just for fun. :)

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matchy-matchy

Remember these fingerless mitts…

made out of this handspun??

Well, I had some yarn left over so I had to make a matching hat.

I tried to make up a top down hat…

…but it wasn’t working.

So I camed across the Sockhead Hat. Very basic and simple and really allows the yarn to do most of the work. It’s designed so you fold up the ribbing over your ears to make it warmer, but I didn’t want to mess with the flow of color in the handspun so I only did half the amount of ribbing.

This is fun stuff. I love knitting with handspun (especially my own ;) )!

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knitting obsessed

I’ve been obsessed with knitting lately… and loving it!

Previously, I’d only have about one to three project going at a time. This year that fell apart and it’s been bugging me most of the year. Well no more. Instead of being bothered by it, recently I have embraced it and started three more projects – all of which I equally enjoy knitting.

I know there is an ebb & flow to creative energy so I just riding this wave for as long as I can. :)

One project I am working on is the “Pass-through Scarf” from the Fall 2010 issue of Spin-off. The pattern is designed to work with handspun, but as soon as I saw the pictures (and checked the yardage), I knew I had the perfect yarn in my stash –

- Two skeins of Alpaca with a Twist’s Big Baby in the Lumberjack colorway. I’d been wanting to make a ribbed scarf with it and am so happy to be finally using it. (I bought it in 2008).

It’s SO soft and has wonderful drape.

The pattern calls for a provisional cast-on and I tried that. I’d never tried to knit from a provisional cast on and the fuzziness of the yarn made it hard to figure out what I was doing. Plus, I didn’t like how it looked. So I ripped it out and started over, despite being over 50% done. I just knew I wouldn’t be happy with how it looked. Since the yarn is bulky, I’ll be back to where I was in no time. :)

Yay for mindless knitting! :D

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I got a new camera!

I got a preowned Canon 10D Digital SLR from KEH.com.

I really like it. My little Sony Cybershot P-72 serves me well but I was getting less and less happy about the minimal control I had over the settings for the pictures (and as a result, taking fewer photos) so I broke down and bought a ‘new’ one.

So, of course, I had to pull out some stash to take pictures.

But this one is my fave, I think. :)

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back in November

Hello again! My plan is to return in November – not posting everyday like last year, but to try and get my momentum back.

Thanks so much for the kind & thoughtful comments on previous post (you know who you are :) ). My apologies not sending a personal reply, but I wanted to say that your kind words did not go unnoticed.

No return of the Spinning mojo but knitting has kicked into high gear so I’ve got stuff to talk about. Now if I could only find my camera. That’s what I get for cleaning. ;-)

See you soon!!!! :)

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cast on, cast off

Whenever a new knitting technique comes out, I tend to be a little skeptical… and I end up late to the party. Plus, picture tutorials don’t work for me.

Recently, I finally tried and learned them with the help of two videos from Cat Bordhi. If you are a knitter and haven’t tried these, I highly recommend that give them a try. :)

Judy’s Magic Cast-on

Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off

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tour de fleece 2010 – finis!

I finished my yarn on the last day of the tour! :) (It was very much a coincidence ’cause I didn’t know when the end of tour was – I just wanted to spin!)

I ended up with a very nice squishy yarn. Non-superwash merino. I am a little disappointed that the blue dye bled in the finishing wash, coloring the natural end of the of the yarn, but I’ll get over it. I suppose it was inevitable but still a little bit of a bummer.

This is the first yarn that I kinda designed. I think that’s cool. I call it ‘Gradient Blues’. There’s one thing that I know for sure – it’s gonna be used for something for me.

I think the photos speak for themselves so enjoy! :)

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is there such a thing as too many hobbies?

I’ve given up thinking I can focus mostly on my knitting & spinning as my main hobbies. Other ones keep sidetracking me.

On a recent trip to the bookstore, I made an unexpected purchase:

Sewing? I haven’t sat down at a sewing machine in over 10-15 years when I made a couple of pillows. I took sewing in home ec but never liked sewing – but I never looked beyond making clothes. I have no desire to make clothes. But bags or at least the lining for any knitting bags I make do interest me. There are some knitted or crocheted bag patterns I’ve not made yet because I was avoiding that whole sewing thing …

So, why the interest now? I have no idea. But I really like this book. It’s not a book of patterns -it a book of projects, ideas that can lead to your own bag design.

Wanna know how motivated I am? I went to a fabric (quilt) store. Very intimidating. I know nothing about buying fabric, but I think I found some nice fabric for a couple of bag projects in the book.

See? (why deviate from favorite colors ;) )

I’ll keep you updated on my progress – success or not!

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tour de fleece 2010 – week one

For this year’s Tour de Fleece, I’m pretty much goin’ it alone – my own personal challenge. Tourdefleece.com is not active for this year’s challenge and I decided not to do the Ravelry version after not enjoying it last year… and I’m havin’ fun.

On July 3, I bought some Schacht hand cards – 72 ppi…

I did dye some merino fiber, but after impatiently waiting for it to dry, I decided to pull some fiber that I’d previously dyed and card it with some natural color merino – total of 4 oz. I really enjoyed blending the fiber with my new fiber tools and made my first rolags. :)

This was a good opportunity to work on my long draw.

I heard a tip in episode 4 of the SpinDoctor podcast that helped tremendously – so I’m working to draw back at the same speed the twist enters the fiber. This is very challenging. One moment it’s working then the next moment I lose it. I know fiber preparation has a lot to do with the success of this technique so I figure that better I get at the fiber prep, the better I’ll get at the long draw.


I’m planning on chain-plying once I finish the singles. I can’t wait to see how it looks! :D

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from fiber to finis!

I finished my fingerless mittens!

I call them ‘Elemental Mitts’ (aka Ele-Mitts). (A woman from my knitting group came up with that and said I could use it! :) )

They are mine, all mine and I love them! My first completed project using my own handspun! :D

I still have some yarn left to make something matchy-matchy so stay tuned for that. I’m still deciding what to make.

ttfn!

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an ending and a beginning

I finished the pink shawl… FINALLY! Geez, it took me six months. I’m so happy that it is completed ’cause now I can gift it! :)

To celebrate it’s completion, I joined a knit-a-long … sort of. The SpinDoctor podcast is having a knit-a-long – Maine Morning Mitts using handspun. My ‘kinda-sorta-maybe-in-a-way-but-not-really’ participation is to make fingerless mitts with my handspun … but not use that pattern but more making it up as I go along.

But you can’t see ‘em until I’m done.

Really.

Don’t look at me like that.

Well…

Ok … here’s a peek. ;)

:D