Introducing . . .

Ash!

Hello, I am cute as a button.

Handspun, Handknit Bonanza, Part II: Plum Blossom

The parade of handspun, handknit hats continues, this time with a ribbed deal that I knit up from the Plum Blossom yarn I spun eons ago.


The fiber was originally 4.4 oz of Shetland wool, dyed in the "Plum Blossom" colorway from Pigeonroof Studios. Like the Burning Bush hat, I originally tried to make a Zeebee, which has turned into my default pattern for hats knit out of handspun, and I actually finished it. But . . . because I was still very much a newbie spinner at that time, my spinning was so abominably inconsistent that my gauge changed during the course of the knitting! The yarn was much thicker at the beginning than it was at the end. If you've ever knit a Zeebee, you'll know that a changing gauge spells disaster! There was a distinct dent in the hat's brim where I grafted the thicker-gauge yarn I knit at the beginning to the thinner-gauge yarn that I knit at the end.


I probably could have blocked the dent out, but I planned on giving the hat away as a gift, and I knew that the first time the recipient washed the hat, the dent would reappear and look bad. So I ripped the whole darn thing out, had a couple of fits and starts with various attempts at different brim-to-crown patterns, and finally decided on with this ribbed affair--my default pattern for brim-to-crown hats, courtesy of Fig and Plum.


In the end, it's certainly not an exciting hat, but I suppose simpler patterns are better with handspun so you can really show the yarn off. I think the hat does capture a nice tweedy, handmade sort of feel, and I do always like the way the ribs decrease into a star in Jessica's pattern. The hat is also nice and stretchy, and the fold-up brim will help keep the ears extra warm, which the recipient will definitely appreciate in the winter.

Specs:
Pattern: Fig and Plum's Ribbed Hat
Needles: US6 circular and DPNs
Yarn: Handspun 2-ply, 4.4 oz. of "Plum Blossom" from Pigeonroof Studios
Recipient: A secret (just in case)!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Handspun, Handknit Bonanza, Part I: Burning Bush

We now return to our regularly scheduled catch-up blogging. In addition to all the spinning that I did earlier this year that I am only now blogging about, I did a bunch of hat-knitting in a (largely unsuccessful) attempt to maintain a net-zero stash intake. Unfortunately, I haven't managed to knit as quickly as I can spin, but I did manage to knock out some hats, which will make some good holiday presents this winter.

This is one of my favorites from the hat bonanza. It's knit out of the Burning Bush Corriedale that I got from Spunky Eclectic back in February this year--one of my first successful wheel-spun yarns. I love the reds, blues, and oranges.


Knitting this hat was quite a struggle, though. I don't remember all the trials and tribulations exactly, but I think that what you see here is probably the fifth incarnation of this hat. I originally started trying to knit a Zeebee and ripped and reknit several times due to fit/gauge issues. When I finally figured out that I didn't have enough yarn for a Zeebee, I switched to a regular ribbed-brim affair. That took a couple more attempts, too, before I hit on a reasonable number of stitches and the correct size.


Still, I'm very happy with the finished object. It's nice and thick and covers the ears, as I think all woolen hats should. And knitting with handspun is so much fun!

Specs:
Yarn: Handspun 2-ply, 4 oz. of "Burning Bush" Corriedale from Spunky Eclectic
Needles: 10.5 Addi Turbo, Brittany Birch DPNs
Pattern: My own--just 2x2 ribbing for 5 or 6 rounds, then stockinette
Recipient: Not sure. I know I said these hats would make good holiday gifts, but I might keep this one for myself because it was such a struggle to knit. Plus, have I mentioned that I love the colors?


Hope everyone had a nice weekend! Happy Bastille Day!

Child's First Socks, Redux

We interrupt our regularly scheduled spinning blogging for a quick message from our sponsor, Current Knitting!

Look, our cuffs actually match this time.

That's right, folks, I actually have some current knitting to blog about! (Wait--did you just hear that? That was the sound of the earth turning backwards on its axis for a split second. You experienced it first here on Seedless Grape!)

I'm in the midst of a knitting frenzy to try and knit up some gifts for my various co-workers, whom I'm leaving in exactly one month when my current clerkship ends. This is the first effort, a pair of Child's First Socks from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks for one of my co-clerks. The yarn is Dream in Color's Smooshy sock yarn in the Wisterious colorway.

Hello, look how wisterious we are.

This was the first time I'd knit with Dream in Color, and I lurrrrve it and want some more. It's nicely spun and I love, love, love the "veil-dyed" semisolid effect. No striping, no pooling, just lovely shifts of color all in the same color family. It's really beautiful, and I love how it turned out for these socks.


This is the second pair of Child's First Socks that I've made. It's rare that I reknit sock patterns (that is, if I'm not just knitting a straight stockinette or a ribbed deal, which doesn't really count), but the Child's First Socks is such an easy pattern with elegant results that I decided to knit it again. (I'll admit that it helps to knit something I'm familiar with when I'm aiming for speed. ) The only modification I made (besides tweaking the number of repeats to get the appropriate size) was to sub in a short-row heel. My co-clerk has very narrow heels, so I hope that the short-row heel will fit better than the regular heel flap that the pattern calls for.

Specs:
Pattern: Child's First Socks
Needles: 2 US1 Addi Turbo circulars
Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy sock yarn, "Wisterious"
Recipient: The Rules Clerk
Mods: Fewer repeats; short-row heel

Sweet as Pie

The (blogging about) spinning kick continues! I was lucky to snag some of Adrian's "regular" fiber during her most recent shop update at Hello Yarn. This is four ounces of Finn wool in the colorway "Sweet as Pie" (photo of fiber here, again courtesy of Adrian).


The white tag attached to the roving is the backside of an index card on which I recorded the yardage, the kind of wool, and the colorway. I finally started noting all this information on tags and attaching the tags to the finished yarn because this yarn was a birthday gift to the Aspiring Ecologist (who is now ABD, by the way, woot!) and I wanted her to know what she was getting. Of course, bad blogger that I am, I don't remember any of the pertinent facts (namely, the yardage) myself. Again, it's sort of a DK/sport-ish weight, over 200 yards. That's about as much as I remember. (Sorry!)

This was the first time that I actually consciously examined the roving and the color repeats and tried to spin the fiber to achieve a desired result. (Usually, I just split the roving in half, tear off strips, and have at it, willy-nilly.) I wanted to try and maintain a proper barberpole--i.e., no sections where the two plies were the same color--so I noted the color repeats and tried to arrange the order in which I spun the strips of roving to avoid two colors overlapping when plying the two singles together. This was successful for the most part, but there were still a few places where the colors in the plies pooled together.


Again, I can't say enough good things about Adrian's fiber. Her sense of color always amazes me. I love trying new wools and new color combinations with her fiber. For someone with a pretty boring job and a mundane sort of life, spinning things from Hello Yarn always feels like an adventure. I love it!

Hive

As promised, here's "Hive," the last shipment in the February-April Hello Yarn Fiber Club. Like the Red Velvet fiber, I wasn't organized or disciplined enough to get a photo of the fiber in its unspun state, so you'll have to do with Adrian's picture.

I'll have fond memories of this fiber because I actually spun it in the Japanese Garden in Houston's Hermann Park, which is one of the big green spaces in the city and home to the Houston Zoo. I had a terrible, wracking cold for about three weeks in April and May and wasn't exercising much, so I wanted to get outside and breathe some fresh air before it got too hot. I lugged my Lendrum to the park, found a handy little pavilion in the Japanese Garden, complete with a bench and a roof (it drizzled a bit that day), and sat down and spun up almost the entire batch of fiber.


I was pretty absent-minded when I wound the yarn into a skein, so I don't remember the exact yardage, but I'm pretty sure it's over 200 yards of DK-weight yarn. It was very hard to get the colors exactly right in the pictures, and even now it looks a little oranger in the pictures than it is in real life. But at least you have an idea of how nice and cheerful the fiber is. Spinning it really made me feel like that princess in Rumpelstiltskin who had to spin gold out of straw!



It's 4 oz. of Falklands wool, and although it's not my most consistent spinning effort, I'm very pleased with the finished yarn, which is soft and happiness-inducing. I just have to figure out what to make with it. I think a bright scarf might be the way to go, to cheer up those winter days when the weather is blah.

Red Velvet

I'm quite embarrassed about how long it's been since I posted. Everything is still fine here at Chez Seedless Grape; work has just been more than a little crazy for the past few months. I won't go into the dirty details, so let's just continue with our regularly scheduled blogging (such as it is), shall we?

In the midst of work craziness, I've managed some intermittent knitting and spinning. Unfortunately, most of the knitting has already been given away--mostly birthday gifts--without proper photographic documentation for blogging. But the spinning FOs are still hanging around, so at least I have something to show for my efforts!

I can't remember if I ever blogged about it, but I joined the Hello Yarn Fiber Club for the February-March-April installment. Wow, I love Adrian's fiber! I won't even pretend to have the same sense for colors and shades that Adrian does, but participating in the club has definitely expanded my color horizons. The colorways are always fun, interesting, and super-saturated. Adrian combines colors that I wouldn't necessarily pick out for myself or even think would look good together, but somehow they always turn out looking amazing.

Below are some pictures of the second club shipment--"Red Velvet." Unfortunately, I was too disorganized and distracted at the time to take a picture of the fiber before I spun it up, so you only get to see the finished product. (But you can click here and see Adrian's picture of the fiber.)


Spinning this fiber was MY MOST PERFECT SPINNING EXPERIENCE EVER. Seriously--no exaggeration. The yarn is the most consistent I've ever achieved, AND I got my singles to match up almost perfectly. I think I had about a yard and a half of extra single after plying the two singles together. That's the closest I've ever had my singles match up. I am in LOVE with this yarn!


It's 4 oz. of Shetland wool, and I can't remember the exact yardage, but it's well over 200 yards of a DK/sport-ish weight. Enough for a hat or mittens, definitely, although I haven't figured out what I want to do with it. I'm a little too in love with it right now to knit anything out of it.

I've spun other fiber since the Red Velvet, but nothing has achieved the same level of UTTER PERFECTION as this lovely little hank. I think it helped that I spun all the Red Velvet fiber up in a fairly concentrated period of time, so I had serious muscle memory, got into a zen-like groove, and kept going until all the fiber was spun. Other spinning projects since then have been a bit more stop-and-go, so the finished yarns are lumpier/bumpier and my singles haven't matched up quite so well. I'm looking forward to the next zen-like spinning experience; as perfect as it is, surely the Red Velvet can't be the apex of my spinning career!

Next up (eventually): "Hive," a.k.a. the Hello Yarn fiber club's April shipment. (See Adrian's picture of the fiber here.)