spun-to-finished – Page 2

Owlie Gloves

By Sheetar 7 February 2012 7 February 2012 0

Owlie Gloves! They’re just too cute, and a great way to use up my growing stash of handspun.

First, the Fiber:

Fiber is by Gnomespun and is Polwarth in colorway, “Hidcote” – I picked this up at Rhinbeck in October 2010

Second, the spun yarn:

Yarn was chain plied, and came out to 328 yards. It probably falls between worsted and DK and is pretty slubby and uneven, but it’s got a very handspun quality to it which is perfect for gloves. The unevenness seems to disappear, especially when knit at a smaller/tighter gauge. The yarn is lofty and squishy and perfect for gloves.

Thirdly, the gloves!:

Pattern is Owlie Mitts that I added fingers to so that I’d have gloves. I love fingerless gloves and mitts, but really, it’s my fingers that get cold, and adding fingers to mitts is pretty easy! They fit perfectly. The gauge is pretty tight (think knitting a thick DK yarn on US 1.5 needles), but there’s no way the cold is getting in through these. The beads were sewn on later rather than knitted in since I didn’t have the crochet hook or floss necessary to add them during the knitting. No big deal. Here’s the Ravelry Project Link if you want to see my short bit of notes.

knitting, Socks, Spinning

Go With the Flow Socks

By Sheetar 16 April 2011 16 April 2011 3

Finally, another spun-to-finished project. I’ve been accumulating quite the stash of handspun, and I figured it was time to put some to use. The yarn is dyed by Meg at Twisted Fiber Art, and she’s really quite the magician with dye. The colorway is called, “Intrigue,” and was part of a club Meg ran for 3 months. I spun the superwash merino roving into a thin single and then chain or navajo plied the yarn so that the colors would stay together as they were dyed. I ended up with about 425 yards of fingering weight yarn that was then turned into a really squishy pair of Go With the Flow socks. The pattern knitted up quickly, and I only made a few modifications – worked a plain slip-stitch heel and didn’t turn the work inside out after the heel flap was done. I love the way they came out and refuse to take them off now that the photos are taken. Yeah, it’s almost not-sock season, but that won’t stop me from stocking up for the winter!

Scarves, Spinning

Sunshine Surf Scarf

By Sheetar 13 March 2009 13 March 2009 0

This is another one of those great spun-to-finished projects that I love doing.

Roving

The yarn is fingering weight and a three ply. I just divided the roving into three parts that weighed about the same. This is my first three ply since I got the SpinOlution lazy kate and put her to the test. It worked out great and the resulting yarn was so squishy and soft.

The Scarf! It’s longer than I am tall (5’4″) and is soft and puffy and squishy. Orange probably isn’t my favorite of all the colors, but I LOVE how this knitted up and how incredibly soft it is. I decided not to block the scarf since I loved the bubbly and rippled texture that the dropped yarn overs give the fabric. It’s been worn a bunch of times and has gathered a number of compliments.

Pattern: Morning Surf Scarf
Designer: Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer
Needles: US 5 (3.75 mm)
Yarn: Handpun from Crown Mountain Farms superwash merino roving, colorway “Sunshine of your Love”
–Ravelry Project Link–

Hats, Spinning

Thorped

By Sheetar 10 February 2009 18 February 2009 1

There’s this great thread on Ravelry that shows a project from roving to spun yarn and the finished object. It’s without question my favorite thread on Ravelry and is really inspiring for a spinner to see what people spin with what fiber and what patterns they’ve adapted to their handspun. REALLY creative people there.

Sometimes, you get a batch of fiber and you just know what it’s going to be – like Michelangelo said about his sculpture, “I saw the angel in the marble, and I carved until I set him free.” This may sound a bit strange (if it does, then Michelangelo was strange and that’s a club I don’t mind being a part of), but you knitters know what I’m talking about.. The times when the yarn speaks to you and tells you precisely what it wants to be. It’s just like that with roving and spinning fibers. The finished article is in there somewhere, waiting to be let out. Sometimes it just wants to be yarn. Sometimes it wants to be a finished object and you just KNOW it the second you lay eyes on the colorway and the texture of the fiber.

So, here’s my most recent Spun-to-Finished entry and the first one for the blog.

Fiber:

Superwash Blue Faced Leicester (BFL) from dkKnits – January installment of the fiber club.
Colorway: Burnt Blueberry Baa’Hill (baa’hill.. baaagggellll.. get it? :-P)

Yarn:

8wpi, Heavy Worsted, 167 yards, navajo plied, spun on my Spinolution Mach 1 wheel.

Finished Object:

Pattern: Thorpe
Needles: US #8 (5mm)
Trimmed with a bit of leftover Cascade 220 Superwash. I have NO idea of how to crochet, so I used a helpful video on YouTube.

In other news, a family friend sold her sheep farm and moved recently, bringing with her A LOT of fleece. I graciously offered to take some off her hands and came home with just about five pounds of raw wool from Border Leicester mix sheep. There was about 1.5 lbs of black fleece and about 3.5 lbs was white. I decided to mix them together to save on processing and shipped it off to Zeilinger’s for cleaning and to be drawn into roving. I hadn’t heard anything back in a few weeks, but sure enough, today, a box showed up on the doorstep containing my roving. Dog for scale, but there’s a ton of it. I believe this roving is begging to be a sweater. It hasn’t decided on a color yet though, but I’m sure it will let me know once it’s ready. (The dogs are North American Standard Mutts by the way, weighing in at about 50 lbs each)