Wool For Brains

It certainly looks that way, the dog would fit in that slipper with no trouble at all. This is the thing that I had on my head in the last post, I don’t need to say that this is going to be fulled because it’s fairly obvious that there’s no-one on this earth with feet that big. At this stage I had my doubts about just how much it is possible to shrink wool, I know that it shrinks a lot but I wondered whether it would shrink enough? The main colour is the yarn that Dan helped me card, he’s given it me in exchange for me knitting him a pair of slippers. This is good really because I didn’t think it was suitable for the scarf that he wanted it for, there was a fair bit of mohair in there and it was a bit scratchy. The deal is that I make my slippers first to see if it works out because I can cope with disappointment better.

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This is Fiber Trends pattern AC-13, felt boot slippers, and I’m aiming at a size medium, not that you can tell that from these photos. I was planning on covering the sole with a piece of non-slip sturdy something because now I’ve priced up the one piece Fiber Trends soles I could knit an adult sweater for what they would cost me including shipping. As usual with things that I want they are not available in the UK, Get Knitted sell the two piece soles which aren’t going to do the job. It’s not really the non slip aspects I need a sole for, I suspect that it will increase the life of the slipper by a very long time. If I use a two piece sole I think that I’ll get holes in the gaps, if I cover all of the sole and run the leather (or whatever I use) up the sides then I hope that I’ll get some decent wear out of these. That was my plan from the start which was fortunate because I started off with 168g of the main colour and after knitting the first slipper I had 80g left. The second slipper now has a green sole so covering it up with something will be a really good idea. I don’t want it to look as if I didn’t bother to work out the yardage before I set off which was of course exactly what I did do.

The slippers are drying now, they may be drying for some time. They’re ok but there’s room for some improvement on the next pair. When they are dry enough to wear I’ll be able to see exactly what I’d do differently next time. I’m reconsidering the soles, I’m not sure that I’d manage to get a needle through the wool and they seem to be sturdy enough without adding anything. I may have created the world’s first hobnail boot slippers. When they’ve finished their stint in the airing cupboard we’ll have some post shrinkeage shots.

The tomten did get interesting before I’d had enough of it. It’s looking a bit strange at the moment, this is the start of the hood, the two big slits are where the sleeves will go in. I have loads of yarn left so I’m happy to start the hood before I’ve made the sleeves, there’s clearly enough to do both. I thought that with the slipper and was wrong but with this I’m really really sure that there’s enough.

I had hoped somehow to bend several laws of physics and create enough time to go to the Masham sheep fair this weekend, I knew that it was never really going to happen but hope is a powerful thing (for the aliens that is Mass-sam not Mash-am not that it makes any difference providing that you’re not reading aloud). It was a sensible move not to go, despite all my resolutions about not buying any fibre that needs processing I know that the reality would be that I would have come home with a sheep in a bag. I do not need any more fibre, I have no room for any more fibre, I am not buying anything that needs washing. Maybe I should get that on a T shirt because I know that repeating it doesn’t work, I already failed with this one (Gotland locks, 400g) although I could claim a technical loophole in that this is already washed. It was also very cheap and utterly fantastic. I’m trying very hard not to fall down on the purchase of big bags of sheep, there will always be another time for a big purchase in some future reality where I’ve spun my way through what I have.

I’ve been meaning to knit another Zimmermann knit for a while, when I finished the bog jacket the next one I was going to knit was the Tomten but that was back in 2007 and it hasn’t happened. I have a hard time believing that it was two years ago but there it is and the dates on the blog can be relied upon unlike my memory which has a habit of condensing the past. As part of the great front bedroom clearance of 2009 I’ve been poking about in the bags of yarn that I’ve bought for a specific project but then never knitted. It seemed a sensible move to kill two birds with one stone and make my Tomten out of abandoned yarn. I have a bag of yarn left from a sweater that I never started, it was to be mostly green with cream and burgundy stripes. I’ve knitted a couple of scarves from the green in an attempt to see it out of the door but there’s still a lot left, plenty for a little sweater.

I’m ignoring the voice that says I should spin a sheep and spend months making a Tomten jacket for me, I need shaping in a sweater and I already have one sweater with big sleeves. I’m a big fan of seamless construction because I dislike sewing up but given the reality of sitting with the whole thing on your knee while knitting the second sleeve I’d rather the whole thing be a small whole thing. The sensible choice is to knit a small version which would walk through the design features just as well as an adult one, be finished faster and not eat up so much of the yarn that I have to degenerate into random stripes.

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This then is the start of a small but hopefully perfectly formed tomten jacket. At the moment the plan is to continue in the green, put in a wide cream stripe at the start of the sleeves and another narrow one near the cuff. The hood will be green, I have so much of the green that I don’t need to worry about running out. There might then be a cream icord edging along the fronts and around the hood which should make it easy to hide the stitching for the zip. I’ve cast on 120 stitches in double knit on a 4mm needle and at 6 stitches to the inch it should come out to a 20″ chest. At the moment it is the ideal tv knit, all knit all of the time and hopefully I’ll get to an interesting bit before I get sick of knit 120, turn, knit 120.

This is to show that I’m not sensible all of the time . I rather like the shaping of this one, Dan didn’t say that I looked a numpty in it either and he didn’t laugh which altogether spoiled the point of wearing it. It’s a mite too big and there’s some excess fabric up there at the top because it isn’t a hat at all. I have to make another of these the same and then maybe I’ll think about making a real hat with that sort of shape. By the time I post again I’ll have a pair of these and then we can all have a laugh about my new project.

What to spin, what to spin? I started with a set of three batts that I’d made for Etsy, I sold three or four sets of these and ended up with one for me. It’s a red/brown mix with streaks of gold silk. I found a braid of bfl in a similar red/brown/gold that had suffered in the rinse and had been too sticky to offer for sale. I made a two ply from the batt and a navajo ply from the bfl with the intention of making yet another bag. (I know I said that I was over them now but this was on the loom before I decided that. I can stop making them at any time, really I can).

I love the finished fabric, the striping in the warp and the random gold silk in the weft but there’s no getting away from the fact that it’s 15″-20″ shorter than I was expecting. I know exactly what length I need for a bag and you would imagine that there would be no difficulty in turning out a piece of fabric to that length. This would have been bag five after all so I’ve had plenty of time to get it right. For whatever reason, I got it wrong. I can think of at least three ways I can have done this and I don’t know exactly which hole I fell down but the result was a piece of fabric that was too short for a bag but acceptable for a scarf. It’s a bit on the skimpy side, I originally thought that if you were giving it then you’d want to put something else with it to make up for it being a bit short/narrow. After I read the recent Spin Off I’m rethinking this as there was a scarf in there that was 5″ by 40″. That makes mine at 6″ by 56″ look positively generous. ?? ?? ?????? ?? ??????????? ??????????

I weighed the remaining yarns and there was about 100g. I know I can get a hat out of 100g of thick yarn but I wanted a hat with a bit of shape rather than a beanie so 100g might not be enough. I assembled the potential candidates for a beauty contest. The green was out, the yellow was fine as a contrast because it picked out the gold silk but it was too overpowering. I thought that the reds and browns had enough in common with the original yarns to work and by using all three together it would be thick enough. It’s a criminal use of handspun laceweight but needs must. If I still didn’t have enough yarn then I could dye the yellow to be mostly brown with the occasional gold patch. One way or another there would be enough yarn there for a hat to match the skimpy scarf.

For the record, it came in at 92g so it would have worked in the original two colours. I liked it but my fashion adviser said that it was a Tudor hat and that I looked a right numpty in it although it would look fantastic on his teacher. She’s not having it, not this time. The yarn that looked great in a scarf looks average knitted, the play of colour in the stripes just isn’t there and the result is that I think it’s a waste of yarn. I’m going to rip it, make another batt with streaky gold silk and make it into another scarf.

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The geese are starting to fly over in the mornings, great long straggling V’s of them flying down to the lake. It’s starting to be too cold for just a t shirt when walking the dog in the morning and the front grass (”lawn” my eye) is beginning to gather blown leaves. The trees are still mostly green but a few are starting to turn colour. I’ve not turned the heating on yet but it won’t be long (the hour last Thursday evening was just to test if the new boiler was working – honest). ?????? ??????? ????? ???? ????? ????? ?????????

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Suddenly wool seems like a really good idea and I can’t believe that I ever stopped knitting. What was I thinking of? I need new gloves this winter as my missing handspun one never did turn up. I spent last winter with one glove on and one hand in my pocket and I think I’ve given the missing glove more than enough time to turn up. I need a new hat because I gave my last dog walking hat away and I could do with a scarf to go with it. I need slippers because my feet are cold in the evenings, I’m still in sandals so have no socks to keep me warm. I can nearly see my next cardigan, all the major features are there (big collar, no fastenings, pockets, grey) but I’m still hazy on some of the details. What I really need is to finish something first, this is easier than it sounds because there’s so much that I want to knit that I can’t decide exactly what to cast on. While I’m dithering I might as well be finishing up.

This is Phazalia’s framed baby jacket made in a combination of Yummy Yarns sock yarn that I got in a swap on the Spin or Dye swapping group on Ravelry and some previously white sock yarn that I dyed to match it. Most of my recent yarn acquisition has come from swaps, I’ve had some fantastic not-purchases recently. If I were making this again I’d sit down with a cup of tea and really look at the knitting order on the mitred squares. The pattern has you cast on and off for each square thereby making 44 ends. I did away with some of that as I was knitting, where possible I used the last cast off stitch as the first picked up stitch. I can’t help thinking that if I’d changed the order in which the squares were made then I could have used this trick more often and saved myself a bit of sewing in. I chose the pattern because of the interesting construction, you make the mitred squares first and then pick up for the rest of the fronts, back and sleeves. I was prepared to whine and moan about the number of ends but to be honest it wasn’t as much of a job as I thought it would be. My recent experiences of sewing in 120 ends on a scarf meant that the 30-odd on this was nothing at all.

It’s finished with an applied icord edge which I’ve done before on both the baby surprise and baby bog jackets so I’m not sure why I made such a pig’s ear of it this time. The EZ trick is to make buttonholes on both sides and then sew up the ones you don’t want by putting the buttons on top of them. I think this is a cracking idea because it puts off the whole question of “which side to put the buttons on” until you’re ready to sew the buttons on. In my case this can be years later. While walking the dog I gave a lot of thought to buttons and which side would be easier to fasten when you are dressing a baby. I came back, sat down and applied the icord up the front and around the neck without thinking about it again. The result is that the buttonholes went where they had to go, the second side as I was knitting.

I know that the usual definition of a finished garment is one that is ready to wear. In this case the definition I am using is “as finished as I can get it without a trip to the shops”. The next time I’m somewhere that sells buttons I’ll get the two that I need, assuming that I remember of course. If I can’t remember the buttonholes what chance is there of me remembering the buttons? The important thing is that this is as finished as it needs to be for me to call it done. This is the medium size, using sock yarn and 3.25mm needles it has a finished chest measurement of 20″. If you’re looking to use up leftovers it weighs 98g, the squares took 32g and the remainder 66g.

Why would you want to make the same thing again and again? One reason would be to get it right. The first bag was good enough but I wanted to see what it looked like in a slightly different size. I thought the strap might sit better on the shoulder if it was twisted at the top and I was sure that my tassels could be improved.

The second bag is a bit narrower with a twist in the strap. I discovered that the gold beads of which I have an endless supply are too small to go onto the yarn so I couldn’t make the same sort of beaded fringe as on the first bag. I liked the sewn on beaded edge but thought that it was hidden by the yarn fringe and would have looked better without it.

I’d had more time to think about the bead problem by the time I got to the third bag so the gold beads made it into the fringe despite being too small for the yarn. The answer was simple enough, thread the beads onto thinner yarn, fasten that to the edge of the fabric and twist it in with the fringe. This one has the twisted strap because at the time I liked that but the experiment with size was not so good. It’s not my dream bag because it’s too small. This is 8.5″ deep and I prefer the 10″ deep version. ????? ????? ??????? ?????? ??? ??????????? ???????

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This has a pin motif and side ventilation but you get the general idea. It was supposed to be the next bag but I’m not sure whether I like it enough to make the effort. It’s hanging there while I decide whether to sew it up or consign it to becoming the dog walking scarf. It will look much better with a beaded edge and a bright lining but I have my doubts as to whether that will be enough to lift it. This was the bag that would determine whether the beaded edge from bag two looked better without a yarn fringe. It probably will but to get to this stage I had to sew in 120 ends, should I make another I think I’d try the alternate method of chopping the fringe off and making a hem. I’m also not sold on the colour, I tried a painted warp and although there is a colour change it’s not worth the effort. (You can just see it changing to green at the bottom edge of the bag now that I’ve told you where to look) It would have been more noticeable had the weft been a solid colour and thinner and if the warp colour changes had been closer together. On the plus side the fabric feels fantastic, it’s just a bit plainer than I’d imagined. ???? ???????? ????? ?????????? ????? ????? ????? ????????

It’s taken me four bags but I now know what I like best in terms of width, length, strap and edge trim. This should be the point where I turn out a succession of pleasing bags but I think it’s really going to be the point where I switch to something else entirely. For the record my preference is for a bag 10″ deep with a 1″ hem and a strap at least 33″ long. I’m still undecided as to whether I prefer a twist in the strap or not, I’ve made some of each and there’s not much to choose between them. The drawstring in the first bag was the leftover warp yarn plied on itself, subsequent cords were plied back on themselves a second time. My tassels got better as I went along, I ended up making this one twice because I managed to add the tassel before I’d run the cord through the spring toggle. I’m now certain that the tassels are big enough to fulfill their purpose and stop the toggle from coming off, I tried really hard to make the tassel go though the hole and not even poking it with a 3mm needle would do the trick. I like tassels – I get to use the loom waste that I’ve been keeping in case it was useful.

My personal stash of socks lives under the kitchen sink. This is mostly because I use them in conjunction with the washer but also because no-one but me goes under the sink. If they were out in the open they’d be thrown away as rubbish. They’re not all odd, some come in pairs, but even the matching ones are a fat lot of no good because they fit no-one. There are some advantages to living with a growing child, there’s a ready supply of outgrown socks.

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Although they are no good for their original purpose they are still massively useful and one or more of them comes out from under the sink every week. I use them to hang skeins of wet yarn from the washing line, it’s more secure than pinning up the loops of yarn that I used to tie the skein and there’s no chance of getting the clothes peg irretrievably wound up with the yarn. The sock is much wider than a yarn tie and doesn’t leave a pinch mark blocked into the dry yarn. It works with roving too where I couldn’t hang it from a skein tie if I wanted to (there are none)

When I’ve finished a drum carding session the fibre that’s left on the drums could go into other batts to make textured lumpy yarn but as I don’t spin that sort of yarn I don’t make that sort of batts. The carder cleanings are just waste except of course they aren’t, they’re the start of lovely round felt balls. If you pack the toe of a sock with three handfuls of carding waste, tie it tightly and throw it in with the wash you end up with a nice round felted ball. To get a really good one you need to take it out of the sock after the first wash, tie it up tightly in another sock and pop it back in with another load of washing. I use these as plying balls when plying with a spindle, you wind the single tightly around the ball and pop it into a deep bowl to ply from it. I have another next to the sewing machine that is collecting pins and of course you can always throw them. (The socks are loved by their owner, I really disliked knitting them. Too much yellow) ??????? ??????? ????? ???? ?????? ???????????? ????????????? ???????????? ????? ???? ???? ??????

The third use I’ve found for useless socks is for protecting the fringe on scarves. I wash my woven things as soon as they come off the loom, before I’ve done anything about twisting the fringe. I used to end up with a big tangled mess but if you fold it in two and stick the fringe in a sock it comes out of the washer as neatly as it went in.

The baby jacket has been hanging around waiting for a second sleeve because I lost the circular needle I’d used for picking up stitches for the first sleeve. I’ve looked everywhere for it over the last week and I’m delighted to say that I have found it. It was in the bag with the knitting and pattern. I swear that was the first place that I’d looked and I did proper-looking not just man-looking

The postman did bring the thing I was waiting for, it doesn’t look much (a nit comb for a giant?) but it will look better when seen in context. That will next week when the husband goes to Paris and I don’t feel so bad about leaving my toys out all night. Providing Daniel has a spot on the table to eat his dinner and do his drawings then he doesn’t notice what’s on the rest of it.

I’ve done some knitting this week but my prime knitting time (evenings in front of the tv) has been occupied with other things. I ran out of the large beads I used on the last beaded fringe and the small ones are a pig to get onto the yarn so it was time for a rethink on the edge of this piece of fabric that will become a bag. I now think it would look much better without the yarn fringe and next time I might well do that, ditch the warp fringe and just add the beads. It would work better with a finer yarn, as it is the warp is just too thick to play nicely with the beads. These are the beads that I took off Iris, my thought at the time was that gold beads would go with everything and we will see if that is the case, I have five thousand of them to go at so I’ll be using gold beads at every opportunity. ????????? ????? ???? ?????????

This does now look something more like a jacket now it has the sleeve in (this is the back). This might have been finished by now except that the circular needle that I was using has vanished, it can’t be that far away but until I find it there will be no picking up of stitches for the second sleeve. While I’m waiting for the needle to turn up I could be sewing in the ends but of course we both know that I’m not going to be doing that while there’s anything else I could be doing. Shiny beads versus sewing in ends – no contest. ????? ????????? ? ???????????

I’ve been doing a lot of spinning, this is a pile of boring white merino. It was cheap, really cheap, 500g for £7.50 cheap, so cheap in fact that I should have asked myself what was wrong with it. It came as a great fluffy batt, when I got it out of the bag it was like no batt I’ve ever seen and I suspect that it was made for feltmakers. The staple length was next to nothing and it was a classic lesson in looking before you leap. This is the last of it, I’m going to be using it in things that will be heavily fulled because as a knitting yarn I suspect that it will pill like stink. It improved my woollen spinning no end, you can see the difference between the first skein and the last. It will look a lot better once it has been dyed and woven but it might be a while before the right project comes along.

I’m nearing the toe on the second single striped son sock. What he doesn’t know is that I’ve not been totally dedicated to it, there’s only so much yellow I can take at a sitting so I cast on for a sock for me. This is the same K4 P2 rib as the last pair that I made but I’ve carried the pattern down the foot. It’s interesting that the waves don’t show as much in this yarn (Ranco Multy), it’s a softer squishier yarn than the last I used and the rib isn’t pulling it in to the same extent.

Depending on when you are reading this, the blog will be/has been down for some essential maintenance. Don’t ask me what it is/was, I just type the words in and he who knows these things does all the rest. I don’t need to know how stuff works, I married an IT specialist after all. I do understand that moving the knitting books on the bottom shelf can cause the internet to vanish, there’s a socket just behind the shelf and it’s very easy to knock the plug out with inappropriate usage of “Victorian Lace Today”.

It’s been the last week of the school holidays (back to school tomorrow, Tuesday) and I’ve been rushed off my feet doing nothing. I suppose there was those three half days looking after spare children and those three days where I felt really ill (fortunately not the same days as I had spare children) so it shouldn’t be a surprise that the week has slipped away. I can’t seem to get a grip on what I did manage to do (I haven’t been well you know) so instead of trying to get my brain into gear I’ll take the easy route and give you the non-Knitter’s viewpoint on my life taken from one of his school workbooks.

(Click thumbnail for bigger photo)

M

um is amazing

You would be jealous if she was not yours

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My mum knits

Usually she knits socks

My mum makes good toast

Knitty, knitty, knitty is my mum

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ever does she not makes me socks

I go to woolshops with her

To 9 years old to further on

She will always be my mum

He’s a keeper isn’t he? Luckily for him I remembered this when I had to rip half a sock back. I checked with him after the first stripe and after the second and all was well so it was a bit of a shock the next morning when I found I’d spent the evening doing it all wrong. Twelve row stripes were too big, what he really wanted was one row stripes. I do so enjoy cutting yarn up into little balls for no good reason, I will no doubt enjoy sewing in all those ends that I didn’t need to have. It does look huge but it fits him so now I just need to make another the same.

I’ll be back when I’ve restored the house to its usual low level of tidiness, after six weeks holiday it looks rather lived in and there isn’t a flat surface that isn’t covered in books/wool/lego/artwork/pens/paper. I feel I ought to do something about it if for no other reason than to make more space for me to put my clutter on.