My plan to post shortly after our return from travels was delayed by a good 14 days thanks to Spinzilla: “a monster of a spin event”. This event is organized by the National Needlearts Association’s (TNNA) Spinning and Weaving Group and a lot of fun. The goal is to keep one week free of all activities to spin the largest amount possible. There are teams with up to 25 members and rogue spinners who compete for a mention as the most prolific spinner. Seeing the winner in the rogue category spinning more than 20,000 yards in one week I am amazed and now know that it was a good idea to spin rogue  (by myself) for my first try. I had planned to join TeamGeorgia in Vancouver remotely, but may have not been such a good support with my 2,935 yards in one week. I seriously want to work on my speed. Some pointers like select and prepare all your fiber before the spinning week starts and decline any activities for 7 days I took lightly. Not touching my email (besides one or two important ones) or any housework worked really well, but there is a limit on how much I will neglect time spent with my husband and exploring Abu Dhabi. I planned for that by having one spindle-spun project to work on in the car or while waiting, but deciding on my Turkish lace spindle made for slower progress than working with a larger one. I think that theory will be tested for next year.

Let me guide you through my process. The basic plan was to reduce my stash and have an idea (before spinning) what to make out of the yarn. I had just returned from an amazing two days at my friend’s house in Germany and saw her gorgeous three-ply yarn built out of hues of yellow with  white and a green. Seeing those different fibers and colours of the singles combined to create a beautifully interesting looking yarn made me want to be a bit more relaxed and adventurous about my yarn and allow my intuition and creativity to go beyond my usual “planned” colours. Plus, I realized that with a lot of spinning I might be able to end up with enough for a sweater. That would be a first for me, too!

Since my three braids of roving from Kinfolk Yarn and Fibre added up to about 340 gm of fiber and a sweater would most likely need at least around 400 – 450 gm I decided to add 30 gm of light blue Falkland fiber and 50 gm of a white-blue indigo dyed Corriedale fiber by Kristan MacIntyre. This decision happened on the evening before Spinzilla started and there was no time to blend the fibres by carding. So I thought “Why not try combination drafting?” Rachel Smith described it in her blog Welfordpurls and it did not sound too difficult. Knowing that I was ignoring the fact that drafting of two different fibres will not go smoothly or as consistently as a properly carded blend.

My finished yarn was to be a 3-ply created by plying together my three different colours of combination drafted singles. Before spinning I split all three rovings into half and then halfed them again to spin a quarter of the original onto a bobbin of my Victoria Louet travel wheel. Each of the three single bobbins held about 50-60% of its capacity making it the perfect amount to be plied onto my Majacraft Suzie Pro bobbin.

Singles were S-spun and Z-plied. I set my Louet to 1:8 for the singles and the Suzie to 1:10 for the plying. Resulting in  a slightly overtwisted yarn before finishing it with a hot-cold-hot rinse cycle and a thorough snap before drying. Once dried the yarn was balanced and amazed me with an overall blue-green first impression dotted with interesting highlights of light blue, purple and light green. A small sample turned out to look quite green, but it only showcases about 10 m of the yarn. Other parts have areas where blues dominate.

The heathered effect shows well in the knit sample on 3.5 mm needles and yields a dense, but still soft fabric. During Spinzilla 568m in 3 skeins were spun. The fourth skein with 165m was finished in the following weeks resulting in 733m of a DK-weight yarn. Just enough to knit a version of the Garter stitch swingy sweater  by Jenn Pellerin. I will swatch in garter stitch to see if I like the look of my yarn or I may need to either adapt the pattern.

In the past two weeks I finished a baby hat (no photo as it was gifted right away), the knit-along scarf and my Stormwatch sweater.

I will try and post a better photo of the sweater in another post. It looks funny with the skinny sleeves on the blocking board but fits well hugging the arms and swings around my body.

Thank you, for reading my blog! Maike

 

Since my last post in July, where I was writing about projects in the making, not much has been finished. Some not being in my control, for example : this knit-along shawl. I have finished all I can knit as per emailed out instructions, but will leave it be until the 5th pattern shows up in my mailbox. I am sure it can be a quick finish then.

I could “cheat” and just knit the 5th pattern since I test-knit all of them earlier this year, but I feel it is better for me to wait and knit along with everyone else. Especially, when there may be questions popping up. I find it easier to answer while immersed in the process than weeks later.

The shawl I started with the variegated Blue Moon “Socks that rock” yarn combined with a Regia sock wool came along well during my visit in Germany and could have been finished if I had liked the current size. For a while I couldn’t make up my mind if it was big enough and then decided a week ago that with my impending travel back to Munich/Erding next week I have the great chance to buy another ball or two of the Regia sock yarn at Sopie Braun’s Haus der Handarbeit and continue knitting the burgundy edge. At this point it is only about one inch deep and I think the colours look more balanced with at least two inches of the darker colour.

The second knit project I took on the trip is almost done. Really, there is only the last task of adding some eyes and a nose to this cute, little lamb. It probably could pass as a bunny, too, with its droopy ears and small tail. As much as I am happy with the outcome this time again I find that the knitted fabric shows a little the stuffing inside. I noticed this with my baby toy balls as well and thought it might be fixed with a tighter gauge. May be, I need to go down more than 1 mm in needle size?

 

Once I arrived back in Abu Dhabi the Panda fibre was laid aside and the yak-silk fibre I had sampled during Tour de Fleece was spun. I had decided that to showcast the beautiful colours a long gradient would be best. Which meant that I needed to prepare the fibre. First it was split lengthwise into three strands of roving. Then the first one was seprated after each colour into shorter pieces. The pieces were sorted from fuchsia to blue to purple and spun into a thin single with a ratio of 1:10. The second strand was prepared the same way to yield a lace-weight to fingering weight 2-ply yarn. I was trying for a worsted spin, but the fibre was tending to fly away and didn’t draft consistently after the manipulation. I found it easiest to work with a short backward draft.

Thanks to Wetcoastwools video blog I was bitten by the sweater knitting bug. Glenda and Bernadette have been showing the most amazing sweaters and cardigans they were knitting during the summer and talking about how much they wish it would be fall or winter to be able to wear their new pieces. That was so inspiring that I pulled out a project I had swatched for in 2015 and then put aside to clear some stash before moving. It is the Stormwatch sweater by Holly Yeoh which was started on August 31st with Filisilk yarn (70% Merin, 30% Seide) by Atelier Zitron. I would describe the colour as coral red with a very slight yellow undertone. This yarn is thinner than the recommended sock-yarn in the pattern, but knits up with the same gauge and will be more suitable for our warm  Arabian climate. The oversized fit will allow a lot of airflow which I come to appreciate since moving here.

The very last and most recent craft is a crochet poncho made of 156 flowers. This beautiful, lacy crochet top pattern came to me as a birthday gift and paired with a pretty fuchsia-coloured cotton yarn to get started right away. The pattern called for a few more balls and I found the perfect complementing colours at Greenbranch Trading in downtown Abu Dhabi.

I have to admit that this pattern is way more challenging than I thought. It is a case of reading the instructions, thinking “Oh, this seems easy enough and I am sure I can modify it to not have so much sewing to do” and then being taught by trial and error that it is not. For some reason I was expecting to be able to crochet one flower and continue to the next one without breaking the yarn. With a little bit of thought I could have figured out that it is impossible when crocheting from the middle out. So, there is a thread to be sewn in at the beginning of each flower and at the end. Multiplied by 156 flowers. Yikes! How could I? When I don’t like the non-crocheting part of the work? It turned out to be ok as I am hiding the threads after each flower while working along and thinking of a dear friend that makes it all so much easier. The other learning experience was that I do not as easily understand the written crochet instructions and am heavily relying on the photograph and the chart. In knitting I can work from either one, but not for crochet. I ended up ribbing back and crocheting each of the three rounds three and more times until I was satisfied that I had the result I was expecting. Since my first flower took over an hour to finish I am happy to report that I am down to about 15-20 minutes per flower. A much better speed to finish the final garment before the year is over. I may even be so lucky to use fewer flowers as I find that my first row chain of 10 is quite long already and I like the poncho to cover my shoulders and upper arms, but not down to the wrists. It will be an interesting journey.

Thank you, for reading my blog! Maike