Category Archives: yarn

Spinners, weigh in! #tourdefleece

Posted on July 16, 2014 | 8 comments

So, spinners, do you have a yarn goal in your head before you start spinning? The reason I ask:

This is my first real yarn. I’ve played with the spindle before, but this is 4 ounces of fiber, turned into about 75 yards of single ply. I spun this on my Jenkins Turkish spindle.

It appears that I have made two different yarns here. When I started, I was trying to make a heftier single than my default accidental laceweight. Some of this yarn does that; it’s kind of like Malabrigo Worsted in heft and twist.

The later yarn from this spinning is thinner and twistier, because I was afraid my fat singles were underspun. This thinner yarn would be great plied because some of that twist would reverse in the plying, right?

This was all a grand experiment. But it’s like I have two different yarns in the same skein. And the first fatter singles weren’t underspun after all. The twist is lovely after washing and drying.

I also played with the mystery fiber that was at my house (leftover from a kids’ felting experiment). I used my Kundert top whorl spindle because it can handle a much bigger cop. The single was twisty, and then I wound a two-strand plying ball with my ball winder so I could ply it on the spindle. It’s pretty, yes? It’s only about 16 yards, 2 ply worsted to Aran weight. But pretty consistent! I like the barberpole look in the skein, but I’m not sure I’d like it knit up.

I think all of this means that I need to decide what I want this BFL from Knitted Wit to be, before I start spinning it.

I think because it has so many colors and I don’t want barberpole, I should aim for either a fat single ply, or a skinny yarn I can chain ply to preserve the color runs. I’m not sure which one I’m more likely to be able to do successfully.

This is as much fun as planning a knitting project. Everything is possible, until you start and then doors start to close…

Spinners, help me out. Am I on the right track?

8 Comments

Posted in spinning, yarn

Tagged spinning, tour de fleece, yarn

New pattern: Beanstalk Scarf and Mitts

Posted on July 11, 2014 | 7 comments

Beanstalk is live! Cathy Woodcock at Lantern Moon gave me a skein of Indochine to play with last February. I wanted to design something that made the most of this single skein of luscious yarn. That something turned out to be a skinny scarf.

I love the way the stitch pattern blocks out in silk. But a scarf alone didn’t seem to be enough, so I designed some coordinating mitts. Just one more skein!

The thumb gusset grows out of one of my favorite leaf motifs, the same one that I used in my Garland shawl.

This photo is from Sarah Peery, who test knit this set for me.

More information about this pattern is on the Beanstalk pattern page, and on the Ravelry page.

To celebrate the launch of this pattern, I’m offering it for half off through July 22. Use the coupon code BEANSTALK when you check out; here’s the link to purchase through Ravelry (you don’t have to be a member). Go forth and knit!

(Anyone interested in a KAL?)

7 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design, ravelry, yarn

Tagged Beanstalk scarf and mitts, Indochine, lantern moon, Lantern Moon Indochine

Tour de Fleece?

Posted on July 7, 2014 | 2 comments

Lots of stuff in the works: Design project at test knitter and tech editor (mmmmm, Indochine), design project that’s in time out after two tries, design project that’s just fun fabric to knit, design idea that wants a drapey yarn that’s being dyed up (hello, Knitted Wit Shine!), design proposal that’s cooking in my head, and an upcoming pattern re-release that needs a sample and some math in an alternate yarn. So since I don’t have anything to show you from that list at this moment, what should I show you?

Spinning. Of course.

It’s Tour de France season, and that mean’s it’s also Tour de Fleece. I don’t really spin, but all the pretty pictures in my Facebook and Instagram feeds got me inspired. I have a couple spindles, but I was frustrated that my singles get skinnier and skinnier as I spin. My aim for TdF is just to play with techniques and try to get fatter yarn.

I’m working with my lovely Jenkins Turkish spindle; I can control the speed more easily than with my Kundert top whorl spindle, which is really fast. My yarn looks better so far, but far from perfect.

I chain plied the previous skinny single and a new fatter single. (I think it’s merino and silk. Label is long gone.) One feels like string, and the other feels like yarn. Happier with the new stuff! But a long way to go before I get any consistency.

I saw Lorajean (Knitted Wit) this morning and picked up yarn for the sample I need to knit up, and she sent me home with this:

Corriedale pencil roving. So far, it’s easier to spin with (longer staple? already uniform width?); I’m drafting it it just a little bit, and experimenting between park and draft and draft as I spin. It’s all research, right?

I like what I’m getting so far. I don’t know if I’ll keep it as a single or chain ply it. I’ll figure that out later.

If you’re wondering why I chain ply instead of two ply, it’s because I don’t have a lazy kate (although I could jerry-rig one; I have before), and also because chain plying keeps the space dyed colors intact instead of mixing them. My sense of order is pleased…

Are you doing Tour de Fleece? Any hints for me and my quest for fatter singles?

2 Comments

Posted in spinning, yarn

Tagged spinning, tour de fleece, yarn

Road trip with the Traveling Ewe

Posted on June 30, 2014 | 11 comments

It was a fiber-full weekend! On Saturday I went on The Traveling Ewe‘s inaugural road trip. JJ Foster is putting together fiber-related tours, and this one was grand.

How awesome that the license plate on our bus said “YARN”? Too funny. Our trip took us out of rainy Portland to the drier side of the Cascades. We shopped at Knot Another Hat in Hood River, a very lovely store with a view of the Columbia River.

We had lunch at Celilo. I’m thinking these hefty picks through my sandwich would make very cute little knitting needles.

From there we hopped back on the bus and visited Cascade Alpacas of Oregon, which has a cute little yarn shop and even cuter alpacas. Thomas demonstrated spinning and weaving for us.

And Connie told us about raising alpacas.

Can you get more bucolic than this?

Snack time!

This cria (baby alpaca) is 2 days old.

And this cria is 3 hours old. Check out the wobbly walk!

Our last stop was at Mt. Hood Winery. We sampled some wines, and had show and tell with the day’s purchases. (Angela wins. She did some major shopping!)

Melissa is going through a blue-green knitting phase. All her yarn seems to match.

Mt. Hood made a valiant effort to peek through the clouds. All in all, it was a fun day! JJ Foster has a knack for planning. We had just enough time at all the places we visited, and the bus was a great venue for chatting with other knitters. I’d do this again! You can, too. The next trip is August 16, and will visit Corvallis and Eugene. More details here. Bring knitting you can multi-task with, because you’ll be chatting and laughing the whole time.

Sunday’s fiber fun? Open studio at Knitted Wit; Lorajean is doing this on the second Saturday and fourth Sunday of each month. Stop by and craft, and shop, too. This weekend Lorajean was getting ready for Tour de Fleece. Me? I just knit. Oh, and we are coming up with a very cool color for a pattern I’m releasing soon. I edited and formatted two patterns this weekend. Lots of fun things in the works; I’m looking forward to showing them all to you. Soon!

Fiber appreciation starts early!

How was your weekend?

11 Comments

Posted in Knit, travel, yarn

Tagged knitted wit, The Traveling Ewe, yarn

She Who Watches

Posted on June 23, 2014 | 10 comments

Last week, I did a quick camping overnight at Washington’s Maryhill State Park. It’s about 2 hours from home, on the other side of the Cascade Mountains. I drove through that area a couple months ago; you may remember my fascination with wind turbines.

Still fascinated.

Here’s the daylight view, with knitting.

I met up with my friend Vickie so we could visit Tsagaglalal, She Who Watches.

She’s a Native American petroglyph that was etched and painted into the rock perhaps 250 to 300 years ago. She Who Watches is located in what is now Columbia Hills State Park in Washington, and is only viewable through a guided walk with the park.

Along the way, one can also see other pictographs (rock paintings, as opposed to etchings or carvings).

Salmon Shaman

She Who Watches is at the end of this guided walk. Very cool! There are also some petroglyphs that have been relocated to this park from Petroglyph Canyon, which was flooded when the Dalles Dam was built.

The knitting? It’s the second knitting of the Lantern Moon Indochine, this time in the color Viridian. This piece is done and blocking. On to the companion piece! All will be revealed, soon.

In other news, the blueberries are early this year! Ripe and ready for picking. I made my first cobbler of the season from my favorite recipe that I’ve been using since 1986. You can find the recipe here.

It was deiicious, as usual. We had it a la mode, in the back yard, as a belated Father’s Day celebration.

What did you knit this weekend? Did you go to Black Sheep Gathering? I’ve never been, but some day…

10 Comments

Posted in Knit, travel, yarn

Tagged cobbler, petroglyphs, She Who Watches, Tsagaglalal

Just enough yarn

Posted on June 10, 2014 | 1 comment

It’s so satisfying to have just enough yarn…

There was just enough in this ball of Lantern Moon Indochine to finish my project, leaving only 18 inches to spare. Glad I didn’t have to rip out that last repeat. I’ll show you what I made, but first I have an idea to coordinate with it. Soon!

A little more beachiness before moving on. What’s got the seagulls all in a twitter on top of Haystack Rock? Oh, just a couple of eagles looking for lunch…

Just before this, all the common murres took off in a big cloud, fleeing the rock. Apparently they’re the first course for lunch because they’re easy pickings. The gulls eventually ran the eagles off, but it took a while.

I finally found a good clump of starfish; I was getting a little worried that they weren’t as much in evidence as they were last August.

There’s an epidemic of starfish wasting disease on the west coast this year, and it’s made its way to Oregon. I hope the starfish don’t all die out. The ones I saw looked healthy.

One more sunset!

Back to my knitting, again! The pink Bling is back on the needles, round 2.

1 Comment

Posted in Knit, travel, yarn

Tagged Cannon Beach, haystack rock, Indochine yarn, starfish, starfish wasting disease, sunset

Lantern Moon Indochine yarn…and the coast

Posted on June 5, 2014 | 8 comments

I forgot that I have a little ball of Indochine, Lantern Moon’s 100% silk sport weight yarn. Cathy gave it to me when I was on my way up to Madrona in February. I meant to use it in class, but didn’t, and then it got tucked away when I got home. This is a sample color; I don’t see it on their website now.

I brought it to the coast to play with. It’s lovely and luminous; it catches the light and shines it right back at you.

My impression so far: This is a gorgeous yarn. It’s 100% silk. There are 12 individual strands, three groups of four. Even with all those strands, it’s not splitty to work with at all, and knits like a dream on a US size 5 (3.75 mm) needle. I tried it first on a 7 hoping for a loose lace, but the stitch definition is much better on a 5. So far, I love it. It comes in 50g/134 yard skeins; Lantern Moon shows it on their website for $19.50/skein. A bit spendy, but oh, so lovely! I’m trying to make a little one skein project out of it; I sure wish I’d brought my yarn scale with me. I guess if there’s not enough, I’ll just have to frog it and have the pleasure of knitting up this yarn again in another incarnation. But for now, I’m counting on the magic of blocking…

I brought four design projects to play with, and I’ve charted three, but this one is the one that has captured my attention. Doesn’t everyone take their knitting on vacation? It’s not Paris, but Cannon Beach is pretty sweet this time of year. I didn’t bring a kite; this is the next best thing.

I found these tiny sand dollars on the beach; that’s my anniversary ring next to them for scale.

I decided to chase the sunset last night, but it wasn’t an original idea.

It was worth it though. I used my Lumix GF6 for this next picture. The rest of the pictures are iPhone5, except the sand dollars, which was iPad. Different toys, um, tools, for different reasons.

And I took a panorama shot with my phone, which turned out nicely, too.

Back to my knitting!

8 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design, travel, yarn

Tagged Cannon Beach, Indochine yarn, lantern moon, Oregon Coast, silk, sunset

Over the Cascades, again

Posted on April 23, 2014 | 6 comments

Last Friday I headed over the Cascades again, but this time in Oregon. It was a music getaway weekend with friends, but before everyone arrived, I had a trunk show at The Stitchin’ Post in Sisters.

(photo by Sarah Peery)

We had a great time! It’s always fun to meet knitters in person, and see hand knits up close. The Stitchin’ Post is starting a KAL of my Garland shawl today, so I left a couple samples for the week.

On to music! My new guitar made her debut with my fellow Pie Birds, Claudia and Becky. We played and sang and laughed, a perfect weekend.

The kids dyed eggs while we played more music.

And what does any good yarnie do with that leftover egg dye?

Of course. I bought a skein of white yarn at the Stitchin’ Post. It’s Juniper Moon Farm Sabine, 30% Royal Llama, 30% Merino wool, and 40% cotton. I was hoping for all animal fiber, but this was luscious. I wound off yarn in approximately 25 yard hanks (around my arm, one uses the tools at hand!). We dip dyed it, squeezing out excess dye after each dip, and then microwaved the yarn for 2 minutes to set the color. A quick rinse after it cooled, and then dried overnight. I was going to wind it into balls after they dried, but decided to leave them as mini-skeins to preserve the color runs. Aren’t they sweet?

On Sunday, Claudia and I walked along Whychus Creek. This creek has been restored, and was the subject of the Two Rivers, Three Sisters quilt exhibit that we saw in Portland last year. This panel was my favorite. (Just had to show you, because it took me a while to find this picture in my archives!)

Here it is in real life…

On the way home, we stopped at Black Butte Ranch so I could get a proper picture of the mountains we saw while driving.

Mt. Washington

Three Sisters (Middle Sister is not visible from this viewpoint) and Belknap Crater in foreground

The sight of a snowcapped volcano always takes my breath away. Such beauty in this world, and we get to live in it. :sigh:

In knitting news, I’ve started my Aloha Shawlette for the KAL. It’s going pretty quickly!

How was your weekend? And what are you knitting?

6 Comments

Posted in KAL, Knit, music, Other craftiness, Pie Birds, travel, yarn

Tagged dye, kal, pie birds, Sisters Oregon, the Cascades, The Stitchin' Post, Three Sisters

Aloha Shawlette KAL

Posted on April 4, 2014 | 1 comment

Aloha! Sharon Spence (Stitchjones) and I are planning a KAL for Aloha; would you like to knit along with us? Easy breezy knitting, and I think we’ll have some prizes, too. I’ll set the KAL up in my Ravelry group; conversation is easier there than on the blog. Those of you who participated in my Rose City Yarn Crawl KAL know that I love a good KAL! If you’re not a member of Ravelry, you should join. It’s a free membership, and there are lots of wonderful resources there.

You can choose to knit the smaller shawlette

or the larger shawl.

Sharon Spence (Stitchjones) is taking orders for yarn for this KAL; orders are due by next Thursday, April 10 so you can have yarn in hand for the cast on Monday, April 21. You are also welcome to use your own yarn. But hey, it’s Rainbow Shave Ice!

I’m extending the $2 off sale on the pattern through April 10, to coordinate with the yarn order deadline for Stitchjones. Use the coupon code ALOHA at checkout for the discount.

Most of the knitting for this is very relaxed, and relaxing! Stockinette and garter stitch and the spirit of aloha. You could even knit it at a knit night. The pattern progresses at a nice pace, and the lacy parts come at just the right time to pique your interest.

Is a knit-on border new to you? It was new to me, and it was fun! I like learning a new skill through a project, and this one was easier than I thought. Why did I wait so long?

Are you in? Please say yes! Get your supplies ready, and we’ll cast on April 21!

1 Comment

Posted in KAL, Knit, yarn

Tagged Aloha KAL, rainbow shave ice, Stitchjones

Introducing the Aloha Shawlette and Shawl

Posted on April 1, 2014 | 10 comments

Last fall Sharon Spence of Stitchjones asked me to design a shawlette with her Pai Mei Sock yarn in a variegated color for her 2014 Yarnageddon Club. She had a Hawaii theme in mind, and she knows how much I love Hawaii.

I love variegated yarn, but I love it even more when it’s combined with a semi-solid. We settled on these colors, which I got to name: Rainbow Shave Ice and Warm Sand. Perfect!

Aloha can mean hello, goodbye, or just be a friendly greeting in general. The Aloha shawlette looks good coming and going! It features rainbows, leis, and waves. Knitting begins at the center back neck (note the three lacy flowers here), continues through the rainbows and shellflower leis, and ends with an edging that is knit onto the live stitches at the end. The shawlette uses 2 half skeins of Pai Mei Sock. The yarn is available from Stitchjones.

The shawlette is a nice size both on the shoulders and worn bandanna style, but the result made me so happy, I had to have a full size shawl, too. More rainbow, more happy!

The pattern includes instructions for both the shawlette and shawl. It is available through my Ravelry page, and will be on sale for 33% off the usual price through April 7. Visit the Aloha Shawlette/Shawl pattern page and use the coupon code ALOHA to make your purchase. I hope you like it as much as I do!

(Detail of shellflower lei and edgings for shawlette and shawl)

10 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design, yarn

Tagged Aloha shawl, Aloha Shawlette, Stitchjones, Yarnageddon