New yarn, new project

Short post today, two new yarns, as a result of recent spinning, and new projects.

First up yarn, just finished, two batches - both spun woolen. I've not even had a chance to calculate the yardage yet. The finer of the two is a heavy fingering two ply, a mix of merino, alpaca, and silk, the thicker a straight merino, which transitions from deep purple green to pale 'out side green'.

Then the new project, a wash cloth, or rather the first of a set. We drove up to my dads in Waimat yesdterday to collect elder cub, and then back bome. Bear has a Billy Bragg concert to attnd tonight so didnt want to risk arriving back to late today. None of my knitting was travel knitting, so i thought washcloth time. I have several balls of this cotton yarn, Rowan Purelife DK naturally dyed, 100 % organic cotton. Scored on the swap table at Unwind earlier this year. We use washcloths in the kitchen and bathroom, and the kitchen ones eventually pick up a grubby tint, most likely from wiping up coffee grounds, and spills. My plan is to knit a new set, already stained with the colour of coffee, what do you think?

The first cloth is all done, a lovely new pattern, a blend of the classic start at one corner diagonal dish cloth, and Chinese waves. The best thing about this pattern is the increases automatically shift the Chinese wave pattern over a stitch, so I never have to remember if I am on row 2 or row 4! I found the idea here, as Nai Nais favorite washcloth. The only change I made was to add two extra stitches and work with a slipped stitched edge.

With lots more balls of cotton to use up, and the current batch of wash cloths looking tired, I've already startd another one. This time double bump wash cloth, by Missy Angus. S far so good. I've always admired the photos which show a stack of washcloths, all coordinated by clour, with different textures. I'm knitting these on my signature straight needles, which every time I use make me sigh with delight. So smooth, so polished, so well balanced, so pretty, and so pointy. If only they came in sock sized circulars.

Well, best go, dinner to sort and Bear to send on his way, work and school for all this week. Bear and the cubs have had a week off, so there will be back to school, and back to work things to sort like bags and books and rain coats, and sun hats.

Take care, na Stella

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Bother!

Look! A hole in my owls!

Right at the back of my right armscye, where the underarm graft meets the back, how sad. And yet in another way shows just how much wear this cardigan has had. Still I have a tiny amount of yarn left, and I will try and mend this. The original yarn was a felted yarn, plied but not strong. Already I have repaired the cuffs by knitting them. Owls was knit in January February 2009, so has three years of hard wear. And I have worn and worn this cardigan.



I will try and record the mending process ..

Na stella

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Progress

Just a quick post today, I have to return to work tomorrow, at which point I will find out what the timetable looks like for nest year. I left with concerns about the delivery of the courses I teach, in particular the 'theory' course which had been relegated to a finish time an hour latter than the other courses. I was 'strong' during the week I was on leave and didn't check my email, if you hear a frustrated cry from this side of the globe tomorrow - it might be me in response to the proposed timetable.

Contiguous tempest

Meanwhile I have been knitting, spinning, and sewing, first the knitting. I restarted my top down contiguous cardigan. So far so good, I am well into the sleeve head and so far the shape of the shoulder and sleeve looks promising. I have tried the yoke on, but the addi circular needle i am using has a twisty cable and there is not enough weight in the yoke yet to make the cable behave. When blocked this yarn blooms amazingly, the effect of the possum, so I am expecting the shoulder 'seam' to I prove when blocked.

Spinning on the Pipy has gone well, and one thing I really like about spinning woolen and being home on leave is the speed at which fibre can be spun. I am near the second bobbin of 220 grams of fibre. Friday Judith Mckenzies plying DVD arrived, courtesy of the recent interweave sale. I thoroughly enjoyed watching, as i spun, she has a lovely clear manner, nice voice and explains and shows why she does what she does. If I had watched the DVD before spinning this I might have planned a three ply, but as I am planning a lace shawl this two ply is probably best.

Tambour

The other thing I have played with this week is tambour chain stitch. I decided that it was best to stop stitching random patterns. The issue with random unplanned stitching is that it requires no precision in forming stitches, so I want searching for a pattern to chain stitch, well first I went searching for thread. I'm using heavy polyester thread made for quilting, as that is the kind that local shops have in stock. Having found thick thread, i went looking for a pattern to stich for practice, In one of my William Morris books, (William Morris by himself, designs and writings edited by Gillian Naylor - an amazing treasure of images and ideas), I selected 'design for bayleaf', and slightly simplified the lines to suit the chain stitch. Once I have the outlines worked, the next stage is to add shading with a slightly lighter colour green, and I have a dirty yellow that I hope to use as well. All the tambour hooks I ordered arrived, and yes the ones from Brodely.com are much much nicer finished and balanced than the lacis.com offerings. Review and update to tambour info page shortly. For now my practice is on white cotton lawn, I prepared the pattern the old fashioned way by pricking the design onto paper, rubbing powdered charcoal to transfer the pattern to the fabric, then I finished by outlining the charcoal dots with water colour paint. Time consuming but no more so than using tracing paper, or a pencil and light box, plus really really effective, and fairly easy. I used a sticky roller to remove what charcoal remained after a good shake outdoors, once the watercolor lines were dry.

Next stage in my tambour learning, once the leaves are complete is to move to working with organza and sequins and beads! What fun .... I even have sequins coming from Brodely.com and a wonderful book to guide and inspire.

Take care,

Na Stella

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Finished object, and returning to things left unfinished.

What happened to the past week, forgive me, it has been a week and a half since I last blogged. Things were busy, I suspected I was getting a cold, still do, the preliminary symptoms have come to nothing. Last week was the last week of term so there were things to do. I had a constant stream of students making enquiries about when they would get their marks back. My standard reply was that mine were done (true)' and that I was waiting for the rest of the teaching team to finish (true), and that organizing other adults was at time like herding cats ( all to sadly true). They took it well, the students, and on Friday I handed back what's could, including the three as yet unmarked, with what marks I had and a note that they had passed, one mark was still to come, the so the total would go up.

Then Bear came home, from two weeks in Christchurch helping with the 'rebuild', and the cubs started their term break, with birthday part invites, so the past few days has been a whirlwind of finding appropriate presents, within budget, and ferrying cubs to and from. In amidst all of that I knitted some, not a lot but I finished a sock, and spun, and distracted myself and little cub with sewing a new dress. Today I am indulging in finishing two books for bear, ones I printed out way back in march 2012. Feels nice to have them finally being works on.

Alien pirate socks

Little cubs pirate socks are done, not blocked in water, but blocked on feet, immediately. Being pale green, and with the eyes the skulls have a slightly more alien feel than a pirate feel, I imagine in blood red, white or black these would be spectacular.

Close up of alien eyelet

My change, was to knit the heel flap in eye-of-partridge, and to bind off with Julie's magic stretchy bind off. Oh and to add eyelet eyes to the skulls on thleg section. I knit the medium size, to fit a 9" foot, and have 18 grams of yarn left over. Not bad considering with all the twisted traveling stitches this is a dense sock. I am having thoughts about how I could make use of the skull motif with the eyelet eyes in a more floating alien way on another pair. The pattern is Pirate Danger by Jeannie Cartmel, a well written pattern as far as I could tell. I don't always follow instructions ... so can't be totally sure.

New green dress

Here is the little cubs newest sewing effort, the green floral hidden behind the sparkly silver number. If it were not for the sparkly silver, black jeans, purple shorts and leggings covered with hearts also in her wardrobe I would wonder about the image she presented to the world. Taken on just her preference in dress fabrics, cuts and lengths, she seems to lean towards the uber conservative small town girl. Still that is better the if she were to lean the other way.

Today I am sewing, books this time, guitar chord books for bear. These are two blanks I printed off for the bookbinding class I taught at unwind earlier this year. No one wanted to bind guitar chord books, the class preferred grid, knitters graph, lines, dot grid and plain pages. No worries I knew Bear would want these, and today seems a good day to complete both. Once the stitching is complete, the blanks get a good press to set the stitches, and then I will cut, cover and assemble the covers. I

Book binding, guitar chord books

And finally spinning, I am on leave this week, taken as the cubs are on rearm break. Bear is on leave next week, to cover the other week of the term break. Because I would be at home, and able to spin a lot, I decided to spin on my Philip Poore Pipy wheel. This came after a conversation with Bear where we were discussing how 'full' the house is, how much 'stuff' we both have. I suggested that a traveling wheel in bag plus three other wheels in the back room, and the big Grace wheel in the living space was part of the clutter and I should maybe sell one or more. Bear was horrified, and said no, I should use them. So this week I am using the Pipy, and I am loving it. For some reason I thought woolen spinning was best on a scotch tensioned wheel, but the double drive Pipy is a dream to spin woolen on.

Phillip Poore Pipy

Perhaps once the tension is set to a beautiful delicate pull in, any wheel works well for most spinning? The blend is a carded batt, or batts from Do Arnot, in Oamaru. In the past I have spun Do's batts worsted, short draw and found them not as smooth as the combed top that others sell. This time around spinning fine supported long draw woollen I am really enjoying the carded batts, the fibre flows easily and the prep is fantastic for woolen. What was difficult for worsted is perfect for wollen. The blend is 'Lichen', and a mix of merino, alpaca, and silk with the proportions not identified. The colors are amazing, fawn, gold, green, brown, purple, silver .... all in a combination that works and has life without drama.

Time to go and finish the stitching on the books, and see how little cub is doing with making butterscotch cookies (all on her own - I like this side of growing up).

Cheers, na Stella

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