Twisted Fiber Art – Sheetar.com

Socks

Ember Socks

By Sheetar 1 March 2017 7 March 2023 0

Yet another Spun-to-Finished project! Simple socks this time, but I really wanted to show off the color transition, and a pair of “fraternal twin” socks seemed like the perfect opportunity. First up, the fiber!

The fiber is from Twisted Fiber Art and is “Sleek,” a now discontinued blend of 50% Superwash Merino wool and 50% Tencel which makes it a great, sturdy blend for socks. The colorway is, “Ember,” which has also been discontinued from the Twisted Fiber Art list of colorways. The tencel makes the Superwash Merino spin up super silky and smooth.

And the spun yarn! I used a chain ply method to get 415 yards out of 4 oz of fiber. The plying method helped preserve the color changes in the roving. It came out to right about fingering weight, so I knew this would eventually become socks.

The finished socks! I knit the same basic sock I always knit – 64 stitches around, top-down, with a heel flap. I started them August 3, 2016 and finished August 19, 2016, so these went pretty quickly! As you can see, the striping doesn’t quite line up from sock to sock, and that’s okay. I actually prefer to waste less yarn and just knit onto the second sock without worrying about the start color lining up just right. For the heels, I switch to the other end of the yarn cake once I start the heel flap so that the color transition on the leg to instep section isn’t interrupted. Yeah, it makes for two extra ends to weave in per sock, but it takes a matter of a few minutes and makes the sock look nice. Here’s the Ravelry Project Link for this project if you want to see more. There aren’t any notes or anything since this isn’t a really complicated pattern, but I am pleased with how they knit up and, as usual, how amazing it is that my hands can turn a bunch of fiber into something I can wear.

Shawls/Wraps, Spinning

Antarktis

By Sheetar 25 April 2014 21 April 2014 0

Another spun-to-finished project! I recently realizes just how much handspun I have sitting around, and how much I need to start using it instead of keeping it set aside as precious yarn that shall not be touched. The resulting shawl came out really lovely, light and airy, and I’m super happy with the results. I’ll admit to not really being a shawl person, but with the right pattern, I’ve slowly grown to like wearing them with the point in front, and sometimes add extra increases to make sure the long side is long enough to go all the way around. There’s nothing worse than a shawl that won’t wrap around the whole way without feeling like I’m being strangled. Details below!

First up, the fiber. This is Twisted Fiber Art’s Cloudy in colorway “Terrain” which is 60% Merino and 40% Bamboo. It looks like the name of the fiber was changed to Glam, and the fiber contents tweaked a little.

Next, the yarn. Spun to something between fingering and lace weight, I came out with 547 yards, chain plied.

The shawl! Pattern is Antarktis by Janina Kallio. Total knitting time was just over two weeks, so it went pretty quickly and was easy enough to bring with me to knit night. I used up pretty much the whole skein, following the pattern instructions until I got to the border section, except switching the wrong-side rows to purl so that it was garter instead of stockinette with a 3 stitch garter border. Just not a fan of garter stitch! I kept repeating the border section until I was just about out of yarn and then bound off using Jenny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off. Blocked aggressively with wires and the resulting shawl came out beautifully. Ravelry Project Link in case you’re interested.

On a non-knitting realted note, I’m really trying to blog more, especially with One Local Summer starting again. It always seems like I go from May to November only posting about food, and I want to try to blog more to break all that up a bit! I have a whole bunch of projects I haven’t blogged about lined up, and there will be PLENTY going on in the vegetable garden, so hopefully those will break up the summer monotony. We’re also going on some trips this summer, and I hope to be able to blog from the road. Anything you’d like to hear about specifically? Let me know in the comments!

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!

Shawls/Wraps

Ravelympics 2010

By Sheetar 12 April 2010 12 April 2010 1

Pattern: Trevi
Designer: Anne Hanson
Needles: US 4 (3.5mm)
Yarn: Twisted Fiber Art Kabam in, “Kismet”
–Ravelry Project Link–

Wow what a project! This was knit over the 17 days of the 2010 winter olympics in Vancouver, Canada. Ravelry hosts a knitting olympics of sorts – I entered this project in the Short Track Shawls event and finished just in time before the end of the closing ceremonies. It was a close one. I finished the border as written in the pattern, but ended up a few yards short on yarn. This isn’t exaclty a yarn that I could just go out and buy more, so I ripped out the whole border and started over, omitting one stitch from the border – instead of three stitches, I dropped down to two, and ended up with only a yard or so left over. It blocked up beautifully and I love the angular lace pattern. Pretty simple as far as lace goes, but enough to keep me interested and still be able to finish in two weeks. I’m super proud of it, and yet again, Meg, the dyer, did a fabulous job dyeing up the color evolution so it fit with the shawl progression just perfectly!