Plying, thats whats being going on, and on, and on. I finally finished spinning the singles for my first sock yarn, so I've been plying the two last singles together, I started Sunday night, and plied for 2 hours last night and another hour early this morning before the school run, and another hour early this evening while dinner cooked. I'm still not to the end of the bobbins. So it goes like this, pull a length of singles off the bobbins, treadle 10 times, feed the length in and pull of another length, repeat, again, and again and again. I think I can automatically count to 10 while having a conversation, or watching tv - multi-tasking of a kind I never knew I needed to do.
This all makes for rather boring blogging, but the plying is necessary if I expect to knit with the yarn, and is pleasant even if taking longer than I want. So there is more 'plying my spinning trade' planned for tonight - and then I can ply the 2 bobbins of two-ply yarns together to get my cabled four ply, that will be Friday and or Saturday before its done. Then, and only then can I return to my knitting projects, I'm being strict with myself here, I want to spin something else, I'm ready to spin something else, I've bought some yummy fibers and I want to play with them, on that wheel.
but I have been doing some knitting, - look baby squares, two 8" squares ready to seam into a baby blanket. These are both knit from a skein of my hand-spun, a lovely blue grey possum merino blend. The fiber was a gift from Jenni, a learn to spin gift, and now its going into a baby blanket gift. I like things that go full circle. The top square has a garter stitch center only because I was to lazy to look up a center blanket technique and couldn't make one work. I cast on 6 stitches, worked 5 rows garter stitch slipping the first stitch each time, then picked up 4 stitches down each side (I moved the first and 2nd stitch to the sides). Then I knit in the round, increasing every corner, every row, using a yarn over. First time I knit it 7.5 " square and then blocked out to 10" square, opps! I knew it would stretch but not that much. Being me, I frogged the outer rows while it was still damp and cast off to get a significantly smaller finished square. The second square is in a moss stitch, one of my favorites.
Knit night tomorrow night - we have a name, did I tell you that already? Take back the knit, kind of a tonge in check take on the take back the night rallies of the 1990's and a slight poke in the direction of knit in public events. We knit in public every week. So my plans for tomorrow night are for more stocking stitch knitting, and then the weekend I might even cast on and work some colour work on the second twined mitten. I am hoping to have the sock yarn plied by then - we will see if I do.
take care - Stella
This all makes for rather boring blogging, but the plying is necessary if I expect to knit with the yarn, and is pleasant even if taking longer than I want. So there is more 'plying my spinning trade' planned for tonight - and then I can ply the 2 bobbins of two-ply yarns together to get my cabled four ply, that will be Friday and or Saturday before its done. Then, and only then can I return to my knitting projects, I'm being strict with myself here, I want to spin something else, I'm ready to spin something else, I've bought some yummy fibers and I want to play with them, on that wheel.
but I have been doing some knitting, - look baby squares, two 8" squares ready to seam into a baby blanket. These are both knit from a skein of my hand-spun, a lovely blue grey possum merino blend. The fiber was a gift from Jenni, a learn to spin gift, and now its going into a baby blanket gift. I like things that go full circle. The top square has a garter stitch center only because I was to lazy to look up a center blanket technique and couldn't make one work. I cast on 6 stitches, worked 5 rows garter stitch slipping the first stitch each time, then picked up 4 stitches down each side (I moved the first and 2nd stitch to the sides). Then I knit in the round, increasing every corner, every row, using a yarn over. First time I knit it 7.5 " square and then blocked out to 10" square, opps! I knew it would stretch but not that much. Being me, I frogged the outer rows while it was still damp and cast off to get a significantly smaller finished square. The second square is in a moss stitch, one of my favorites.
Knit night tomorrow night - we have a name, did I tell you that already? Take back the knit, kind of a tonge in check take on the take back the night rallies of the 1990's and a slight poke in the direction of knit in public events. We knit in public every week. So my plans for tomorrow night are for more stocking stitch knitting, and then the weekend I might even cast on and work some colour work on the second twined mitten. I am hoping to have the sock yarn plied by then - we will see if I do.
take care - Stella
3 comments:
I don't know how you can be so disciplined. I just bought my first batch of roving and a drop spindle, and I was so impatient to see it off the spindle that I only have about a 1-inch ball of yarn. I plan to spin some more, but it's taking a while. If I had your wonderful wheels, I don't know if I would find time to eat:) Good luck with the plying for the sock yarn and replying for the 4-ply cabled yarn. The possum blend looks lovely, and I like the garter stitch center on the squares!
That is one heck of a lot of plying! I can't wait to see how it turns out. I'm about to get pretty disciplined about spinning myself, as I am dying to finish the roving I'm working on and start on something new!
The baby blankets are lovely, and I, too, like the "pay it forward" nature of using your learn to spin fibre that way :)
Yes, plying seem to take forever, thats why I've had an electric spinner for the last 14 years.
I've also come to love 'singles' yarn.
ply only if you have too. Having said that, I do seem to ply a lot of yarn too.
Like the name of your knitting group.
We're starting one here in Oamaru this saturday afternoon. Wonder who will turn up.
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