from the lock

time to revive the blog--I'm going to shoot for at least one post a week. I've got so much spinning, knitting and designing stuff going on at the moment--

Spinning lace from the lock, in a loose approximation of Margaret Stove's approach, without actually having the book or the DVD yet, has been a bit of an obsession lately.



I combed the washed and dyed locks open very carefully with a flick carder



and ended up with about 575 yards of 2ply lace from about 2 ounces of locks--about 4189 ypp. Not the finest yarn I've spun, but the finest I've spun from pure wool without silk or something else added to it--



Which should be enough for about half of an American Gothic (ravelry link).

I'm using 5mm Swarovski Crystal bicone beads from Caravan beads, my local bead shop here in Portland (Maine, the little one).



They remind me a bit of Valentino Rockstuds



I have two more fleeces coming today! A black cormo and a mixed Shetland from The Spinning Loft.

the dirty spectrum

I'm reviving this blog as I've started designing fair isle! It's all I can think about. I show swatches to random strangers on the street, spend cocktail parties commiserating with visual artists about my skepticism of the color wheel, and can draw graph paper freehand. It's getting a little ridiculous.

This blog will become a place to see my designs, design inspirations, fashiony stuff, and the like--

Why did I start designing? It began with a sweater size (well, sweater size for me as I am barely 5 feet tall and don't like to spin any heavier than fingering weight yarn...), one pound kit of Shetland Moorit dyed in rainbow colors, dirtied up from the brownish rose color of the Shetland Morrit, from Funky Carolina that I couldn't figure out what to do with.



As I spin on a spindle, I had plenty of time to obsess. I spun the fiber on and off over about 8 months.

I spin a little every day, but am a bit ADD about what I'm spinning and switch up from different spinning projects to keep myself interested. I spun up this fiber on a Bosworth Featherweight, which are perfect spindles.

I looked at many sweater patterns, none of which were right for my yarns, but all lovely...

For awhile, I wanted a kimono with huge swishy sleeves (I'm a big kimono person and am a sucker for vintage kimonos or kimono-inspired garments...). I looked at Ron Schweitzer's Golden Lotus Kimono (rav link), which I think is probably gorgeous in person but suffers from bad project photography; Tone Takle and Lise Kolstad's A-Shaped Cardigan (rav link), a heavily modded version of A Season of Darkness and Winter Light that was longer overall, used more colors, and replaced the cabled borders with fair isle ones (rav link), but I really needed a pattern that used the different colors of yarn more easily...and was smaller overall because I worried about running out of yarn. I'll have to save my crazy huge handspun kimono idea for a larger fiber lot...



I ended up with about 2300 yards of FC yarn from the kit, plus a couple hundred yards each of some naturally colored gray handspun (one strand of polwarth, and one strand of mixed bfl/silk--not for any particular reason, but because that's what I had kicking around), and some natural ecru-ish polwarth. It seemed like enough for a cardigan, but a kimono would be a bit dicey...

Gratiutous corrugated rib shot...I really love corrugated rib!



My design is probably best summed up as 'lots of shit I love:' (isn't that most people's first design? trying to cram as much good stuff into one sweater as possible...) corrugated rib, chain links, lice diamonds in rainbow colors, a black sawtooth border pattern, and a lumber-style pattern on a white and gray ground (my partner's favorite part of the design) The patterns are adapted/tweaked from Sheila McGregor's Traditional Fair Isle Knitting. 



For fit, I settled on something Isabel Marant-ish. She's been killing it the past couple years with her shrunken sweaters that have just the perfect amount of ease (after trying on a bunch of sweaters at Barneys and The Black Parrot I settled on 2 inches of ease--for me, 36 inches).

Hopefully it'll be tomboyish, with a 1990s feel but not the crazy gigantorishness of the 1990s (I'm one to talk--I spent most of the 1990s in leggings, DMs, and a gray cabled sweater from LL Bean that had a 46 inch bust...)

This sweater will be a cardigan with a narrow v neck, no waist shaping, and set in sleeves (which I'm going to try knitting with only tiny steeks at the very top for the double decreases to ease the sleeve cap into the sweater body based on some mods I've seen on Ravelry) to preserve the stripes around the whole sweater.



So far so good! I'll probably start the second motif tonight. I'm happy with the contrast between the homespun qualities of my spindle spun yarn with the crazy colors--the acid green kills me!

Dracula's Bride!

Sooo...in fall of 2007, when I signed up for Renee Leverington's Halloween Mystery Shawl, I would never have have guessed that it would take me three years and something like 12-15 yarn, needle size and bead combination tries to make the version of the shawl I saw in my head...and then I amazed myself by knitting the shawl in a little over a month!

Here's Dracula's Bride (links connect to Ravelry), knit on US 1.5 needles in Skacel Merino Lace. I used 11/0 miyuki seed beads purchased at the incomprable Caravan Beads in Portland (Maine).

Socks!

I spend most of the winter in boots and knee socks-- thick d'lux cashmere socks that were a gift from a friend with fabulous taste, nylon socks from the Gap, handknit socks from commercial yarn... it was high time I made myself a handspun and handknit pair!

Knee socks, made from an improvised pattern with a, purled "backseam," wide toe and Dutch heel (from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks).

The gorgeous fiber: Merino top from Hedgehog Fibres, colorway Vertigo. I am a great fan of Beakta's color sensibilities, particularly her moodier colorways like this one...specs can be found in my Ravelry entry.





I love the chartreuse with the purple and the flat fountain pen ink-blue!

I'm a relatively new spinner and am still working my way through spending quality time with lots of different fibers, but I get the feeling that Beatka is very particular, and that this is really nice merino!

I love it so much I'm already on my second pair of socks with it (a gift for my Valentine).
Colorway Bitten, a 3-ply rather than a 2 this time, as they're for someone who prefers a thicker sock. (the thin 2-ply I knit the knee socks in is perfect for me, and they're holding up nicely! they've been finshed for awhile and I've worn them many many times).

These are Anne Hanson's Holidazed, originally from the Blue Moon Fiber Arts Sock Club.





I'm in a blue period right now, as I'm spinning this Shetland, (Soil, From the Funky Carolina Fiber Club, September 2009 . This is my first time spinning Shetland and I love it!)



And fondling these (from Moonrover).

Finished!

I am a procrastinator. I work better on a deadline.

I've got about 20 unfinished projects in my queue at the moment--some with only a few hours of knitting left in them. I joined the 10 shawls in 2010 group on Ravelry to impose some deadlines. I'm a sucker for pretty prizes.

So far, it's working! Late January 31, just in time to qualify for January prizes, I finished my first FO of 2010: An Autumn Arbor Stole from my handspun. (Rav details)

(photos hastily taken by my husband before we drowned a cold Sunday afternoon with little bottles of champagne at Portland's wintertime locals-only batcave, then added some starch to the mix.)




and the yarn--over 800 yards of spindlespun love. October sock club batts from Carrie at Funky Carolina.


I'm still not sure what I'm knitting for February (true to type, I've cast on a bunch of shawls and knit a few rows of them...). Most likely Sivia Harding's Belle Nuit from the 2009 M1 Year of Lace. Picot! Beads! Purple!

Sigh. This doesn't solve my FO problem.

I promise I'll spend lots of quality time in February working on my handspun Brora Black Shawl (Rav link), too. Giant, but an easy and enjoyable knit. and the yarn!! My handspun, from Enchanted Knoll Farm Farm Raised Roving--sheepy and sparkly all at once!).

I see myself finishing this shawl at a New Years' Eve party!