Wool For Brains

There is no new knitting, there has been a variety of it for a brief period of time but none that survived. I’ve cast on three different things this week and I ripped them all on the same day that I started them. I made the yarn especially for one project but even that didn’t make it through. The yarn will live another day, it’s not my usual colours but I like it well enough to see it as a hat or mittens.

This also had a false start. The last time I used Wendy Happy as both warp and weft I wasn’t altogether happy with it (groan). I liked the stripes in the warp but not in the weft. With this I’d planned for a solid weft but as Happy doesn’t come in a solid I picked a mercerised cotton 4 ply in the same shade of green. I spent the first three inches convincing myself that it looked fine but it wasn’t. The cotton was the right colour but it was just a bit too thick and it swamped the colour changes in the warp. I still don’t like the stripes but I like them better than the solid. This is going to be another bag, when I warped it I had planned it to be another one strip bag but I’ve since had another idea. Hopefully I’ll be able to split this into four identical pieces for a simple lined bag with warp faced straps. This is dependent on me not coming across a knot in the second ball because otherwise getting a match is going to be tricky.

The sketch is in my new knitty book. I commissioned the covers from the junior art department, they would have been better if I’d glued them to the board and then turned them over to the picture maker, as it was I didn’t want to glue them down in case the colours ran. I really liked the sock gun at the top, I hinted for a sweater cannon but he didn’t like the idea of that one. he numbered the pages for me too, with little socks or balls of yarn around the numbers.

That was my second book, my first one looks better because I took my time over it (I still got the back cover on upside down though). This has lined paper for recording where it all went wrong, plain paper for sketching the sweater you saw on the bus and graph paper for plotting lace and fairisle patterns. I’m working up to fabric covers because I can sew much better than I can glue. The first one was a no-glue production because I used fusible web throughout. It sticks quilting fabric to cardboard very well indeed and I managed not to make a mess of the iron. You can also see my main achievement this week – completion of my tax return.

I finished up all the little socks, I ended up with twelve including two red ones with white toes and cuffs. Once I’d done with them I moved on to little leaves. These are from the Vintage Leaves kit that I got last Christmas, I made a large one shortly after I’d got it and decided that one was quite enough. These are the small ones and they are altogether much more fun than the large ones. The idea is that these will end up on a book cover, once I’ve worked out longstitch binding. The white one was the prototype in some scrap yarn that I’ll dye later.

I have a snivelling cold and it’s half term next week so I might be disappearing for longer than normal. Everyone keep their fingers crossed that I find something interesting to knit in the meantime.

I’ve been intending to blog all week but I held off because I was close to a finish on the Tomten and I thought it would be good to show it really done rather than nearly done. The sleeves were cast off last weekend but as usual it took me the rest of the week to sew it up and call it done. It didn’t help that instead of knuckling down and finishing it I started something else instead. I dropped the sewing up needle in favour of knitting a quick Pretty Thing (it would be prettier if it were blocked, which it isn’t). I added a repeat to the length and the width because I had plenty of yarn and wanted something that flopped nicely rather than fitting close to the neck. The yarn was previously a full cone of 2/28nm cashmere, it’s been in the yarn drawer for far too long and as yarn that thin doesn’t sit well with my requirements for immediate gratification it was destined to sit there for some time longer. It is now a third the length and three times as thick, because earlier this week I ran it on to three bobbins, plied it and dyed it. The cowl weighs 36g and the remaining skein weighs 116g so my cone of cashmere would knit me another three of these providing I took a few rows out of the last one. This is planned as a teacher gift as her favourite colour is blue.

With that out of the way it was back to the Tomten. I did originally intend an i cord edging, I worked an inch or two before deciding that I wasn’t in the mood for it. I fell back on the other EZ option of picking up stitches in a contrasting colour and then casting off purlwise. I didn’t feel like going upstairs and finding the appropriately sized circular needle to pick up stitches all the way around so I experimented with using the dpns that I had to hand. I scooped up a few dozen stitches with a sock needle, knitted them with the first 4mm dpn, then using the other end of the ball of yarn, cast them off the other end of the needle purlwise. It did mean another two ends to sew in at the end but the advantage is that I was only working with a few stitches at a time and there’s an immediacy that was very appealing. Pick up a few, knit them, cast them off, pick up some more. It doesn’t have the rounded look of icord, it’s not good to look at on the back but although icord was certainly the better option it was just not going to happen. (The stitches on waste yarn at the beginning are there to stagger the  cast off row slightly, I thought this would make a better join. This cracking idea was rather undermined when I sewed in the first end, picked up the scissors and cut the second end flush with the knitting. I’d like to say that this is the first time I’ve done this but it isn’t)

The reason that I made this a 20″ chest was so that I could measure the sleeves against the last 20″ sweater that I made. The directions for the Tomten sleeves are to knit them long and turn up the cuffs but I didn’t fancy that. It still needs a zip but that requires a shopping trip and I try to avoid shopping wherever possible. It was a good idea to make a small version of this, I can say with certainty that I never want to knit a full size one. The sleeves were boring beyond belief and I was done with it long before it was cast off. You will notice that the dog isn’t touching the knitting because he is a Good Dog but he did move from his morning snooze to come and inspect what I was doing.

I do have some knitting, I need it to get me through an evening’s tv viewing, but this is destined to become the knitting of last resort. As soon as something better comes along this will be immediately cast aside.

I was going to display my felting endeavours today but I’ve been sidetracked. Nothing new there then. This is turning out to be the year of stash reduction, I’ve been working hard on using up fibre and yarn that has sat around for too long. One of the reasons that stash control is so important to me is that I’m woefully short on storage space. I have a small stash of yarn and fibre (no, really I do) but it’s still bigger than the space I have to put it in. This is because all the usual storage areas are already filled with fabric. I had a solid 10 years as a quilter, I had a large disposable income and not much free time and those are the conditions you need for serious stash accumulation. I have four wheelie storage cabinets filled with fabric but that is nothing compared to the yardage that’s in the wardrobe.

I’ve recently been using fusible web and that set me thinking about what I used it for last. Somewhere I have a panel with Noah’s ark and pairs of animals fused on to it and then machine appliqued. My suspicion was that it was hiding out in one of the boxes in the bottom of the wardrobe and I thought I’d see how close it was to being finished. The bad news is that it wasn’t there, that means that somewhere there is another box marked “quilt tops, need finishing”. The other bad news is that there were some things in the box that I’d totally forgotten about. I did used to have a list back in the days when I had a ruthless policy of “finish two, start one” but it was on a laptop that has long since given up the ghost. This then is the new list of quilts that need finishing, except that I know before I start that it’s incomplete. All the photos enlarge when clicked, they don’t dewrinkle though but you can’t have everything.

This was the real shock, I looked at it and recognised some of the fabrics but I can’t remember making it. I have no idea when I made this, probably around the mid 1990’s. The top is finished, it needs quilting and binding. The reason I put it away was the reason I stopped sewing, once it’s finished you have to do something with it and getting rid of the output was a problem. It was far easier to stop just short of it being finished and thereby avoid the whole issue of “what do I do with it now?”

I did remember this when I saw it, it was a pattern from the Keepsake Quilting catalogue, it’s possible that I bought it as a kit. This is fusible web applique with machine embroidery. The piecing is finished but it needs quilting and binding. I never had a clear idea of what I was going to do with this – was it a wall hanging or did I mean to add big borders for a lap quilt?

I’d forgotten all about this until I saw it. This was a pattern in the Keepsake catalogue except that I didn’t buy it but ripped it off from the photo. This is english paper pieced by hand. It’s not square but I packed it away with the remaining length of black fabric so I could square it up if I wanted. The piecing is finished but.. (you get the picture)

I knew this was in the box, this and the next photo were planned to be the front and back of the same quilt. One of them has much wider borders than the other and is the back. These are the blocks from my quilting group’s first exchange, we swapped 12″ blocks so it would have made a big quilt. I took the predominantly black blocks for one side and the lighter blocks for the other. I know that I set these and did the borders in 1999 because I took them with me to our meeting in New Mexico (I used to get out more) for show and tell, I got home and then set them aside for inspiration for the quilting. The piecing is finished…

This is a 1994 production. I can be clear on that because we all signed and dated the label for the back. This was a round robin quilt, I made the big block with the cabin and sent it on its rounds with the theme being my dream cabin in the woods. I’ve packed it away with the key fabric I used so I have the means of making the tree filler blocks I’ll need to square it up. I enjoyed this, some of my best work went into the blocks for the other group members although that was back in the days of film cameras so I have no idea where to look to find the pictures I took. This needs more work to finish but it’s still not a big job, the reason I never finished it was that I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do with it next. Wall hanging?

This is not of the same vintage, I was working on this when I was on maternity leave and had to put it aside when I developed carpal tunnel problems and couldn’t hold a needle. Somewhere there is a box with a part finished block in it and the pattern. I’ll look for the box, finish the block that I set aside nine years ago and then call this done. It was supposed to be a full size quilt but once I’ve added the setting blocks it will make a lap quilt. If I’m sitting in the evening I’d now rather be knitting than sewing and it’s better being finished now to half size than sitting in a box for another ten years.

I am left wondering where the rest of the tops are because I really thought that there were more of them. I had a big cull about six years ago when I sold a lot of pieced tops on ebay and it is just possible that this is everything that was left. I know that then I had 26 tops in various stages of completion, I sold a few, finished a lot but I will be very surprised if that got the heap down to single figures. Apart from Noah and his animals (which I could well have sold) I can’t remember what it is that I might be missing. I think I’ll concentrate on finishing one or two of these before I start an all out search for the other box.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled fibre..

I wasn’t sure as I went along whether this was going to end happily or not but on balance it worked out well. (Yes, it does need ironing and while you’re doing that could you pull the settee out and vacuum into the corners too) This is a scarf because there isn’t enough yardage in a single ball of Wendy Happy to make a bag. It’s 59″ by 6.5″ excluding the fringe and I ended up cutting off a good 9″ of warp because when I stopped to weigh the ball I’d already got slightly more than half of it warped and I was too idle to take it back and make it right. It is possible to calculate how much warp and weft you need, taking into account the loom waste that won’t be covered by the weft or you can wing it and end up throwing some yarn away. It’s not handspun so I wasn’t that bothered about it and by then the yarn had misbehaved enough for me to enjoy getting my own back and taking the scissors to it.

This is  a yarn that I would never want to knit with. It’s beyond splitty, the plies have all thrown their toys out of the pram and none of them want anything to do with the others. It’s a mixture of 75% bamboo and 25% nylon (or “rayon and nylon” if you are being picky which I am today) so its good features are that it’s soft and drapy and suitable for people with wool allergies and there’s 420m on a ball for under £6 which has got to be good. On the other hand as well as being splitty it’s slippery and not well behaved as a ball or at any time unless you’ve got it under tension. Now I’ve finished wrestling it into submission I’ve decided that I would weave with it again. I’m glad about this because I have another two balls of it in different colours. At 12 dpi it makes a lovely fabric, I like the way that the striping produces those flashes of colour changes in the warp but I don’t like the effect in the weft where it’s just stripey. With the next ball I’ll use a plain weft and just have the stripes running vertically.

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These are three more little socks strung up, the two red ones have a garter cuff and are a bit longer in the leg to look more like traditional Christmas stockings. The top one is the leftovers from the last pair of socks I made because it’s so much easier to pick up the ball that’s still on the coffee table rather than going upstairs to find another ball of leftovers. I have three more to make before I call it a day with these. I keep counting them to check how many there are even though I know that there are nine.

These are the finally finished Ranco Multy socks that provided the leftovers for the mini sock at the top of the string. These have been my take along project for what seems like months. I knit a few rows sat in the car waiting for school to turn out and I take them with me anywhere I might have to wait and be bored. The result is that they have been on the needles for too long, I was sick of seeing them long before they were finished. A few evenings of making them the main project has seen the second one finished. This is a k4,p2 rib, I’ve turned the cuff of the second one inside out so that you can see the reverse because that’s pretty too.

Next time – other things to do with your first handspun yarn.

The Tomten has not grown at all because part of my knitting time was diverted into something new. These are little Christmas decorations worked over either 28 or 32 stitches. I’m planning on making 12 so I’m halfway there now. I think I ought to make at least one red one with a white cuff, the traditional Christmas stocking, even if it does mean sewing in more ends. These take more knitting time than you’d think, I imagined that they would just drop off the needles but that’s not the case at all. The 28 stitch version will hold two Quality Street, one in the foot and one in the cuff and if you were very dedicated you could knit yourself a whole Advent calendar using small socks. If your sock yarn scraps are very small ones and you’re worried about running out then you can easily get a small sock out of 6g of Trekking (weight includes the hanger). Some of the smaller ones would give you change from 5g.

The slippers are now very much smaller (long suffering dog for scale) and I think I’ve found the limit to which you can shrink wool. The fabric is a good 1/4″ thick, “sturdy” doesn’t come close to describing it. If I’d used thinner yarn they wouldn’t have ended up like hiking slippers and if I were making them again I would probably look for something thinner. They are a lovely shape but sadly not the same shape as my feet. They are the right length but far too big around. I have looked at my feet and they don’t look unusually pancake like so I suspect that it’s the pattern and not me. I can’t wash them again because they are already the right length, any more shrinking and the heel will start to go under my foot, you can see by the way that the red cuff is dipping down at the back that this has already started to happen. If I do make a pair for Daniel then I’ll take some of the height from the side of the foot and maybe some of the shaping from the top of the foot to end up with the same length as the pattern but a flatter foot. The good thing is that they were a very quick knit so although I may have wasted the yarn it didn’t waste too much of my time.

I did look at my options for soles, I originally thought of Ultrasuede but that is ridiculously expensive. It turns out that real suede is far cheaper than the manufactured substitute. For less than the price of the Fiber Trends one piece sole I can buy a big piece of pretty coloured suede that would make soles for three pairs of slippers. For even less I could cut up the 1980’s leather jacket that’s hanging upstairs (1980 = big sleeves). For my slippers I’m not sure yet whether it’s worth the sweat and tears of sewing on the sole, it depends whether they are a good enough fit for me to wear them regularly. At the moment they aren’t, I wore them all Thursday night and they are fine around the ankle because of the lacing but my foot is flapping around and my toes have enough room for a party. There is one last way in which I could get them to fit and I need to be in the right mood to do it so it’s not going to happen just yet. If I cut a slit along the top of the slipper from ankle to toe and then cut out some of the fabric on each side I could sew it back together and have a slipper that fitted. It seems extreme but it’s better than dropping them straight in the bin and it’s not as if I have anything to lose. I’m certain that the cut fabric isn’t going to unravel or fray and I can’t think what other problems there might be with this. If anyone has any views on why this might be a Bad Idea (other than the potential for creating weird shaped slippers) then I’m listening.

The next post could be weaving, spinning, carding, knitting or even intentional wet felting (as opposed to my usual sort of whoopsie felting) depending on what’s at the front of my mind next time around.

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