Un-ironic Holiday Sweater, Part 3

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"Buck" from Classic Elite Yarns

“Buck” from Classic Elite Yarns

This is going to be my second holiday sweater. Two features have really drawn me to this sweater: one, the colorblocking, which will visually make the sweater look smaller even though it’s oversized, and two, the prancing deer motif, which gives the sweater a lot more movement than the traditional standing deer fair-isle motif. It’s active and sporty in appearance, while also being big and cuddly. That’s a lot to pack into one garment!

I have some taupe commercially made yarn from Araucania for the lighter part of the body, and I wanted to create some forest colored hand-spun for the darker parts. There is a lot of forest here in Oregon, and I wanted to really do justice to the depth of color and variety in conifers that we have around here.

 

Blue Spruce

Blue Spruce

This is a blue spruce that’s growing in front of our house. The new growth is a beautiful sage-y blue green, and the older growth is more of a yellow green. The Douglas firs around our house are more of a cyan, and there is a dramatic difference in shade between where the sun strikes the needles and the ones in shadow. I ended up blending five distinct color ways, and then blending those color ways further to create this yarn. I ended up deciding on a fat two-ply to match the weight of my commercial yarn, rather than a three-ply, because I wanted to leave enough variation in color once it was knit up.

Handspun two-ply

Handspun two-ply

 

Here is my swatch. The commercial yarn has some striation to it, which goes really well with my handspun, and also has some pink undertones to it, which compliments the greens nicely.

Swatchy goodness

Swatchy goodness

 

 

It’s being knit on #9 US needles, so it’s coming along quickly. I’m debating on whether or not to add some knit-in pockets. I think what I love most about this project is that it’s a representation of the trees in my neighborhood, in the summer, when it was pretty hot out, and I’ll be able to keep a little bit of that summertime feel with me once winter comes. It’s a little put-up job, like a jar of pickles or some jam.

View of summer from our screened-in porch

View of summer from our screened-in porch

The Wool Week that was

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Paycockes, Coggeshall

Paycockes, Coggeshall

You know you’ve gone a bit potty for fiber when you find yourself in a 16th century merchant’s house in Coggeshall, Essex knitting and talking about wool all day.

That’s how I spent last Friday at Paycockes‘, with fellow members of The Mid-Essex Guild of Weavers, Spinners & Dyers’ doing our bit  for Wool Week.

Paycockes is a National Trust property nearby me. It’s a classic Tudor-styled building with a gentle garden in the back sloping down toward the River Blackwater. The Guild has demonstrated there before, because Paycockes has come to represent the wealth created by the East Anglian cloth trade. Naturally wool was at the center of that trade. There are many other towns and villages in Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk associated with the wool trade–notably Lavenham, Colchester and Braintree.

These days the accepted wisdom is that wool, and therefore wool fabric, woollen garments, knitting yarn made of wool etc, is in a decline. Hence the Campaign for Wool’s Wool Week events. Basically, it’s a world-wide effort to promote wool as a natural and renewable fiber suitable for a wide range of uses from garments to home insulation. Sounds like a no-brainer, right?

The Mid-Essex Guild’s spin and knit-in was but a small part of the Wool Week activities, but it did give me the chance to chat to and answer questions from Paycockes’ visitors. I’m going to share some of the comments made and see what you think.

“You just don’t see wool anymore.” That was a comment from one woman who came in and spoke to us about knitting for quite awhile. She wondered aloud if wool’s disappearance wasn’t related to “disposable high street fashion and out throw away society”. It’s a theory I guess. I couldn’t get past her first comment about wool just not being around. Really? I thought. But then I’m probably not a good judge of these things.

Another theory about the decline of wool was: “We all have central heating now. We don’t need big woolly sweaters.” That makes sense to me. Paycockes’ visitors  also observed, wool might be quite itchy, and moths like to eat it and then there’s the washing or dry cleaning. I hadn’t really considered all these reasons not to wear wool. But then I wouldn’t.

Other people asked me about my circular knitting needles and made comments about the big ball of wool one of the guild members had with her. “My what I big ball of wool!” The other comment that really struck me was this: “You can wear handknits again.” While wool is deemed to be less popular now, knitting is experiencing a resurgence in the UK. I can testify to that. Ten years ago there were two or three places to buy yarn in London, for example, and the range of yarn was limited. Now there are more shops and there is more choice. It’s a big difference.

Still, it didn’t occur to me that there was a problem with handknitted garments. But of course there is or was. There is still this lingering idea that store-bought is better. I also took the statement: “You can wear handknits again.” to mean there’s no longer shame in wearing handknits. It’s OK now. It’s even fashionable. In some quarters, knitting is still considered an activity one does out of thriftiness not for pleasure. Any knitter knows that these days most yarn is not cheap. Larger handknit projects can cost you a fortune in materials. Sal reckons most of the garments in Vogue Knitting require about $200-$300 in yarn. Not cheap!

Today I drove up to Colchester. When you come off the main road and head into town there is a meadow on the left side of the road. Usually there is a herd of cows in there munching away. Today it was full of sheep. Wool on the hoof for all to see.

 

Paycockes garden

Paycockes garden

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display of blue-faced Leicester wool

display of blue-faced Leicester wool

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Un-Ironic Holiday Sweater, Part 2

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I’ve made a decision as to which holiday sweater I’m going to attempt to actually get done in time for the holidays:

"Buck" from Classic Elite Yarns

“Buck” from Classic Elite Yarns

Loopy-trimmed cardi

Loopy-trimmed cardi

 

Thats right, I seem to think I can pull both of these off by December. Hahahahahahaha! But if I start now, it’s certainly more likely. I’ll be addressing the Loopy Trimmed Cardigan first.

This pattern is from Vogue Knitting, which I have a subscription to, so I already have the pattern. One annoying thing about Vogue patterns is that they have a lot of errata, so I always check Ravlery before I start and see what the issues are. This one looks pretty straightforward, and the photos posted of finished projects all look great. One thing that was mentioned a couple of times is that the button closures don’t really hold the front closed all that well. One person mitigated this by seaming the front shut and turning it into a pullover. After looking at the photo in my magazine copy, I can see that there’s a straight pin holding the front shut in between buttons on the model. Really! I’m more surprised by the lack of photoshopping than anything. My solution is going make five buttonholes instead of three.

I looked around in my stash to see what I wanted to use for the body and the trim, and I found some navy dk weight Rowan merino/cotton that I *think* I have enough of for the body. It’s a little bit matte because of the cotton, but the stitch definition will be really great for showing off the cables and bobbles. I didn’t have a good coordinating colored yarn for the loopy trim, but, I have a lot of fiber, so I can certainly make some up.

Fiber for blending

Fiber for blending

My navy yarn changes color depending on what else you put next to it. Navy next to navy, purple next to purple. So I got my drum carder out and started blending.

Blended batts

Blended batts

I’ve some navy Shetland and mohair (from my goat, Blue) that I dyed, some violet Shetland/Cheviot that I bought from a lady in my Guild, some Prussian blue Shetland that I also dyed, and a couple of small batts I made up from some teal/brown/navy Polworth/silk blend that I bought at OFFF last fall. I ended up with the navy/purple color way of the commercial yarn, and analogous royal and teal blend color ways to add some variety. Holiday oomph, if you will.

So then my only question is how do I want to spin this up?

Handspun swatches

Handspun swatches

I did three swatches. The first one started out as a single, but I didn’t like how much color separation there was next to the commercial yarn, so I plied it on itself to see if that helped. That’s the center one in the photo. So I blended my batts together some more, and did a single to match the dk weight yarn, and a two ply, to see which I liked better knitted up in the loopy pattern.

Loopy knit swatch

Loopy knit swatch

The single really does it for me. It’s almost like an exaggerated boucle, especially with the mohair halo that it has. The rest of the fiber is spun up and set, about four oz.

Yarn for loops

Yarn for loops

All that’s left to do is cast on!

Up next: decisions about the Buck cardigan.

 

From fleece to fair isle, part 1

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Fair isle is trendy

Fair isle is trendy

For at least 18 months I’ve been telling Sally how trendy fair isle is. “It’s so trendy,” I say. “Look at how many fair isle designs are in the magazines!”

In theory, I love fair isle. The the colors and miniature designs are enchanting. I’ve bookmarked loads of fair isle patterns on Ravelry and I’ve amassed a pile of magazines full of patterns. Alice Starmore’s Book of Fair Isle Knitting is on my shelf and I’ve mentally knit every Kate Davies pattern. Mentally. I admit I’ve bought a few fair isle sweaters to soothe the fair isle itch.

I’ve knit a couple of fair isle items, but spinning yarn to knit up in fair isle intimidates me. Getting the gauge and color right just seems hard, especially if I were doing a whole sweater. So I’ve put it off.

Until the other day when I was beset by a fit of madness. The sun was shining and I set up the drumcarder on a table in the garden and started cranking out some batts. The idea being to spin up some yarn to make two fair isle hats.

Now the question is how do I turn this hodgepodge of fiber:

Hodgepodge

Hodgepodge

Into the Toadstool Hat.

toadstool hat

toadstool hat

 

After a bit of carding–using both the drum carder and hand cards–I came up with some shades that at least resemble the ones used in the patterns. I’ve used a real hodgepodge of fiber–shetland (some from Sal’s sheep Blackberry!), finn, a little alpaca here and there as well as some merino from the depths of my fiber stash.

Batts

Batts

Like I said, getting the shades to approximate those in the patterns will be a challenge. I’m not going to be upset if they’re not the perfect hue. Some of these will require further blending with hand cards before spinning. Hand cards are not just a color blending tool, but fabulous fiber fluffers. On a project like this spinning from fluffy rolags will be perfect.

What I am concerned about is thickness of the singles and the finished plied yarn. My yarn always tends to be a bit on the thick side. However I do have some Jamieson 2-ply to show me exactly what I’m trying to achieve. I’ve also dug out my yarn gauge.

Another resource is the Spin your own Fair Isle kit article from Knitty, which got me started on this in the first place. Lots of good advice and step-by-step instructions.

Now for the spinning.