Wool For Brains

I did have a post planned for today but it revolved around the postman having brought me exciting things. No amount of pacing up and down and looking at the front door made him come so I’ll have to save the squeals of excitement for later in the week.

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In the absence of interesting post these are the latest husband socks. I still like the pattern, it looks way more complex than it is, its simplicity is revealed when the fabric is stretched. This is a k4 p2 rib, with a 6 row repeat but when it is relaxed it falls into those interesting waves. The six stitch pattern fits easily into these 72 stitch socks, it would also fit into the standard mother and son socks which are both 64 stitches. The first photograph is the one taken after all small dogs had been removed, he was asleep elsewhere right up to me putting the socks down, after which he just had to sleep on that section of the settee.

It shouldn’t be too hard to guess who these socks are for, there are very few people I know that would ask for green and yellow stripes. I didn’t feel bad about dyeing a ball of sock yarn yellow just for this, when I’ve finished Dan’s socks the first thing I”ll do is to dye the leftover yarn a more usable colour. I measured his feet this morning and his ankles are still the same as they used to be but now they look skinny because of the extra length in his feet. I’ll start with 64 stitches and have a rethink when I’ve turned the heel.

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The warp here is leftover from this fabric, there wasn’t quite enough hence the purple stripes. It’s interesting to see how different it looks with grey rather than teal weft (well I’m interested but then we know I don’t get out much). This is my first indirect warp because the one thing that the postman did bring me this week was a set of warping pegs. I’m all for the speed of indirect warping on the rigid heddle when you have plenty of yarn for warp but it has drawbacks when you are using up odd bits and pieces. Without knowing the yardage of each little ball I set off warping without knowing whether I have enough odd bits for the width I want. I can’t plan the stripes because I don’t know how wide a stripe I will be able to make with each ball. With the warping pegs I can set them the right width apart and just wind off all of each ball and stop when the total number of ends (threads) is what I need. Before I go to the loom I know that I have enough warp for the width I want and I also know how much I have of each colour. Rather than setting off hopefully I can plan what I’m doing with the yarn that I have. I’m not at all sure that I like symmetry but now I can have it if I want. The other advantages are that I don’t have to walk the length of the room over and over again and I don’t have yarn stretched the length of the dining table/drawing area/spinning corner. ?? ??????? ??????????? ??????

The exciting thing that did arrive over the weekend is attached to this. No, the wandering Mini didn’t come home. If it turns up now it belongs to the insurance company because it has been replaced by a shiny new Mini (rather less shiny now than it was on Friday because it’s been out in the rain and parked in a field). It’s not mine but I do get the benefit from it because my car now won’t be going to work in the morning but staying home with me. This means that I will be able to find a Sheffield A-Z when I want one and not need to get directions from friendly yarn shop owners. I may have bought some yarn while I was there, well it would have been rude not to wouldn’t it?

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This is the Butternut scarf from Anne Hanson, I ran out of yarn three repeats short of the end so it’s rather narrower than it should be and a little shorter. The colours are lovely and it was altogether a pleasant knit, more so because I didn’t have to put any thought into it. This is already on its way back to the person that dyed the yarn and bought the pattern so it’s something I don’t have to work at finding a home for. The idea was that this would get me over the hump of wanting to knit but not being able to settle on a project – the yarn and pattern arrived in an envelope and all I had to do was knit it. I did have three attempts at choosing needles (the 4mm was too huge and holey, the 3mm too small) but that was really the only way that I could make life difficult for myself.

The scarf did work as a remedy for stuck knitter’s syndrome, since finishing it I’ve not only bought a pattern but cast on. I am ignoring the massive amount of dangling ends for now and I would advise you to do the same. This is the centre back of what will become a baby jacket, I already have plans for the leftover yarn becoming another woven bag. I’ve not yet decided whether all those ends are worth it, I’ll have more of an idea about that when I can see what it looks like when I have a sleeve in.

I also finished up all of the humbug Jacob. There was 500g of this and again this is something that is only visiting. I’m not sure that I’d buy this in future, there was a marked difference between the white sections and the black, the black had much more coarse fibre in it. This is a three ply, 964 yards and not my problem any more because it’s going into someone else’s stash not mine.

This post has been waiting for this bag to be finished, what has been holding me up was the spring toggle. The postman brought me ten this morning so I am now able to call it properly done. This set out as a scarf, 10″ wide in the 7.5 dpi heddle. After a few inches it was clear that it was going to be too loose and floppy so I wove it in reverse and resleyed it in the 10 dpi reed. It was then too narrow to be a scarf so I turned it into a bag following this tutorial, The warp is the leftover warp from these bags, they were woven with a pink weft, this bag used a grey weft. I added beads to the fringe, I have no idea why I ever bought small square pink beads but I don’t think that I ever used any of them. The better photos (taken with actual sunshine) were taken before I decided to add the lining. It was a wide and gaping bag and it was going to be one of those annoying bags that empties itself all over the floor as soon as you set it down. I thought that by making the lining much longer than the bag and adding a drawstring I’d end up with something that was more useable and less likely to dump your mobile phone out. The lining was worth the extra work, I like the idea that if you were using it as a knitting bag you could feed the working yarn through the gap in the centre.

It didn’t use up all of the leftovers from the small sock bags, the second length (slightly narrower, slightly longer, very much in need of ironing) didn’t either. This will be a bag very like the first one, maybe with internal pockets. I probably have enough warp for a third bag but that is a project for another day because I fancy a change of colour.

I’m still waiting for the postman to bring me my other parcel….

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It’s the same every summer. Once I stop wearing wool I see no point in knitting with it. Even when the British summer is as dodgy as it has been this year there’s no call for mittens, hats, scarves and sweaters. Once I’m in sandals and the socks are off I down needles and then try very hard to fill the gap that is Not Knitting. I know that there are things to knit other than wool, I’ve knitted four adult cotton sweaters that I can think of, but I like the elasticity of wool and unless there is a really good reason I’m finished with knitting cotton. I know there are other things to knit than garments and I’ve tried very hard to find something that tempts me but it’s not happening at the moment.

I am usually rescued from having idle hands by knitting lace which is truly all seasons knitting. The problem with that is that I’ve reached saturation point, I have as much as I can reasonably wear and I’ve given so much away that my usual recipients probably have more than enough as well. Fortunately I don’t have to tax myself as to what to do with this when it’s blocked, I will be putting it in an envelope and sending it back where it came from. With this someone else chose the pattern and the yarn and all I did was open the envelope and find some needles. I’m quite sad that it’s off the needles now because that means I have to think for myself about what to knit next.

It is inevitable that “what to knit next” is a sock because I’m incapable of thinking of anything else at the moment. I will be using this stitch pattern again because I really like it, I would have continued it to the toe except that this is a husband sock, destined to be stuck inside a close fitting cycling shoe and he likes plain feet. I like the curvy lines that develop when it is relaxed, they’ll vanish in wear but I get to see them when I’m knitting. It is a simple K4, P2 for six rows then offset the pattern so that the new P2 appears in the middle of the old K4. So simple but so pretty. The yarn was cheap (cheaper than undyed) probably because of its original unfortunate colour. A small amount of brown dye has toned down the strident peach, eliminated the white and softened everything into pleasant autumn colours. There is now less contrast between the stripes so it shows a pattern better. I have another ball in a different but equally unpleasing colourway and I think that will be next for the overdye.

I have several things at the nearly finished stage so here is a preview of things coming shortly to a blog near you. That’s the second bag on the loom, the first bag that needs lining and the first three bobbins of 500g of jacob roving (that’s not “nearly finished” by a long way but I can dream). It’s not that I haven’t been busy, just busy on a lot of things none of which are finished (and none of which are knitted). No doubt the first frost will see the return of my normal knitting schedule, until then I think I have enough to do finishing up what I’ve already started.

After a long workout with the fringe twister the blanket for the small settee is done. I like it, it could have done with being 4″ longer but one of the strips was much shorter than the other three. I should have made a fifth strip to replace it but realistically that wasn’t going to happen. It was a choice between a slightly too short throw now or one the right size next year (or the year after). This used up most of the odd bits of coarse fibre that I’ve accumulated, I dyed it green and brown and ran it through the drum carder. The warp was all handspun, the weft was a cone of green, brown and black used doubled. There were enough leftovers for a fifth strip, possibly a sixth one too.

The strip that was the odd one out was the first one that I made, the other three were more or less the same length which I was quite proud of. I don’t know what went wrong with the first one, the warp was the same length on all of them and I was supposed to have measured the weaving but it was certainly shorter. It’s difficult to learn a lesson from a mistake you made when you don’t have a clue what it was that you did wrong.

Pebble is allowed on this settee because it means he can look out of the window, being short legged there’s no way he’s ever going to manage to sit on the windowsill like the dog next door. He usually has his morning nap here because it catches the sun. Even sofa dogs go out for walks and sometimes when he comes home he’s not as clean as he might be, after he’s suffered the indignity of having the hosepipe on his feet his belly can still be muddy. The settee needs a washable cover, the existing one is a piece of blanket and it goes in the washer with the socks on a good drying day. The new one brings out the colour in the curtains and means that I can still have the settee covered while  the other blanket is drying.

It would appear that Carie was right, the 46g left over from the last little blue shawl I made was enough to make another. I started at the centre back and increased at the sides and middle of every right side row and at the sides only on the wrong side rows. Once I’d used a third of the yarn I switched to a simple lace pattern and just did the increases on the right side rows. It’s made a triangle that is wide and shallow (48″ by 17″) so when wearing it as a scarf you have the length without the associated bulk. It’s the right size for flinging around your neck in an attempt to distract attention from your hair. If it were magenta with sparkles and built in lights it might just manage it but my hair is in a state where it needs a lot of attention drawing from it. I have to decide whether to get it cut or whether just to leave it and grow it out. All photos will be stopping at the chin until it looks more respectable.

This is another prototype bag, it’s not perfect but I learned a lot from doing it. I preferred this strap to making inkle braid, it’s just a strip from the width of the fabric backed with some quilting fabric although next time I would make it a bit thinner. The zip was a good idea (it stops your socks from falling out) but next time I’d use a 14″ rather than the 8″ I used here and extend the zip down the side of the bag. It’s the right size for a sock bag, it could maybe have done with being a bit bigger but as the piece of fabric I had was 28″ long then 14″ seemed a good length to start with. The whole thing would work better with a thinner fabric, there is a lot of bulk in those seams, and maybe this fabric would be better with something less structured. It’s given me a whole new set of things to think about while I’m washing the dishes.

The socks that were in the bag are now finished, they grew on me during the knitting and I decided to leave them in their original colour. The colours didn’t do anything unpleasant (they wouldn’t dare, I dyed them) and they weren’t as strident as I remembered them. These are 72 stitch husband-socks with a waffle cuff and flap and gusset heel. I knitted both of these at the same time and the gusset decreases on one represent the time spent waiting for the police and the boarding up service to arrive. I don’t dislike them as much as you might think but I’m still glad that they aren’t for me.

I have some lace blocking and the last two dog blanket strips drying but what I don’t have right now is any actual knitting. Time to rummage in the yarn drawer I think.

You have to have a certain perspective to see this as an improvement. Personally I thought it was a fantastic piece of work because after it was installed I could go to bed. This is usually where I sit to spin, my chair would be in front of the wooden window and the wheel in front of the glass window. Spinning is off for the moment due to lack of light and my total inability to find a different spot in the house for the wheel. The woodwork has been further improved by the art department being let loose on it, the idea was that instead of looking at it and shuddering we looked at it and smiled. That worked then. These are Worms, not just any old worms but the Worms from Worms:World Party, Worms: Open Warfare and various other games. We have Worms with jetpacks, Worms with TNT, Worms blowing up houses and Worms drowning in the sea. The artwork will be staying until next week because our extensive social calendar this week (dentist, 3D special agent guinea pigs and a lunch engagement) has meant that we can’t be measured for new glass until Friday. I shall miss it when it’s gone but some more light would be nice.

This is Wormy, he should probably be Wormy II if we were being picky. At the moment we are in the grip of Worms, I have sheets and sheets of paper covered in Worm drawings, Worms at the cinema, Worms at school, a Worms theme park. The common thing is that they all end up with TNT and big explosions. A quick search failed to turn up the Worm that I knitted him the last time that Worms were big. I decided that it was faster and less painful to knit another than to search for the original in the Beano pit that is the bedroom of a nine year old. I’d like to say that I followed the same pattern as before but it is more true to say that I made it up in the same way as before with the same yarn.

This looks very like the last photo of the new and improved dog blanket except that it isn’t. If we are playing spot the difference then this has white yarn as the scrap header and the thin yellow stripe is at the other side. This is the third of four strips for the blanket, there will be more than enough warp for the fourth and I think there will be enough weft. I haven’t actually checked that four pieces is enough to cover the back of the settee, if it isn’t I’ll come up with something because by then I will be well and truly committed to a finish. Weaving is much faster than knitting, I timed it today and at double knitting thicknesses I can weave an inch in a minute. Over longer lengths it is slower than that, the shuttle needs filling and the woven fabric has to be wound on to the front roller. It does explain how I can warp the loom one morning and have a 57″ piece of fabric by the next day. You would expect weaving to be making major inroads into my stash, I’m expecting that too but as yet there is no evidence to support this.

It’s too early for the before and after shot on the dog blanket, realistically I’m two weeks away from that (four days to weave it, ten days to ignore the making up and then an hour to sew it together and make the fringe). This is the “before” shot, this shows why the blanket needs to cover the back of the settee as well as the bit he sleeps on. I have the “before” for the door too, you can just see the bag with all the warp yarn in it down there at the left corner of the door. The whole interior pane came down with one crash while we were giving statements. The glazier knocked the outside pane out later. None of our neighbours heard any glass break but two of them told the police that they’d heard a funny noise about 3am. The moral of this story is to never attempt to saw your way into a house, always smash the glass.

This is the start of the second piece of the fabric for the throw for the small settee (also known as the dog’s settee). The pink stuff is there to make it all settle down at the start, I’ll take that out after I’ve washed it. With this piece the stripes are less prominent, there isn’t very much left of the yellow and green/gold and I want them to make it through to the fourth piece so they are very strictly rationed. I’m starting to have some concerns about the huge cone of yarn I got for the weft, I’m using it doubled and it is either just going to be enough or just not enough. I’m ignoring that until I can’t ignore it any more and then I’ll come up with some sort of solution.

The yarn for the second strip had an unpromising start, it was all in this bag along with 4oz of cashmere (top left) and the bag was in its usual place at the side of the wheel next to the big patio windows where there is plenty of light. That should be “where there was plenty of light”, there’s less now because one of the windows is boarded up, the blue twinkle in the bag is window glass. I shook all the yarn out and it looks to be fine, I didn’t run across any glass when I was warping and there’s no way that I was going to throw it out if there was a chance of using it. The cashmere fibre was double bagged so I can be sure that it is sliver free.

The window was deposited in the bag (and over a surprisingly large part of the floor) when a concrete pot of geraniums was swung into it just after 12.30 on Saturday morning. The dog rose to the occasion and put his full 8 kilos behind a volley of barking, he then had to do the Lassie routine of running back and forwards to the broken window until I woke up enough to realise that it was very drafty, there was an unusual cracking sound and there was a four foot hole in the window. In my defence I would say that I was half asleep, I hadn’t put the light on and the tv was still there so I hadn’t realised that we’d been burgled. I got my rear in gear in time to get to the front door to see the Mini being backed off the drive. It would have been good for him to have then spat out the burglar’s finger (I’d have settled for a finger although other body parts would have done just as well) but I’m glad that he didn’t get himself a good kicking and a big vet’s bill. He did his best for a sofa dog, he doesn’t have the right equipment for tackling burglars (height, weight, big teeth, fearsome expression) but he can certainly bark. Not only is he getting a handspun handwoven blanket, I cooked him a sausage and I let him play with the squeaky toy until he was half crazed with excitement. It could have been worse, the only thing that was taken was the car key, and then the car of course, but at least we didn’t need to spend the weekend organising new locks and getting all the bank cards replaced. No one was hurt, the window was boarded up before the rain came in and sweeping up glass is just so relaxing.

Needless to say I am playing with wool a lot at the moment, there will be more posts this week.