This cardigan has been on my mind and my needles for quite a while now. The process from spinning the wool, dreaming about what it would become, receiving the pattern, swatching a little and knitting, it has been a journey of trial and errors. A great learning experience.  From the small swatch knit with a 3.5 mm needle I guessed that a 4.5 mm needle would give me the looser drape I desired for my finished garment. I know, this guessing and not knitting a test square (=swatch) is a pretty big “No No” for most knitters, but I like to knit “dangerously”. 🙂 Looking back at the pattern “The Icelandic over-blouse” – the pattern I decided to adjust for this cardigan – I knit about 18 months prior on 5 mm needles, when I reduced the all-garter stitch count by 10 for the front and back, I figured that a needle just 0.5 mm smaller would give me a similar, loosely fitting cardigan if I would add those 20 stitches in again. To enhance the look of my variegated yarn I chose stockinette for the body with a 6 stitch garter border. That changed the fabric to a less stretchy one as I found out when I was about 2/3 done with the body of the cardigan and realized the fit would be fairly tight. There wasn’t much I wanted to do about it as my yarn seemed to be scarcely enough to finish it with a decent length of sleeves. Then came the math part when I calculated where to set the markers for the sleeve increases. About 2 inches in I tried it on and all seemed wrong: the sleeves were too tight around my upper arm, the front parts were overlapping too much and the back was too tight. Unraveling was the only option and sitting, looking at the pattern and thinking where to set the markers for the next try. I learned that the markers for the front and back sleeve increase stitch need to sit a minimum of 8 stitches apart instead of only 1 to create a proper fit around the upper arm. In the end it resulted in a tighter fit around the back which I am happy with. Originally, once the sleeves were finished the cardigan would have been finished, too. But as it happens in hand-spinning the yarn was not uniformly thick and one of my garter stitch edges ended up pulling in from a few rows of noticeably thinner yarn. I was not thrilled by it and as there was some “good” amount of yarn left I thought to try an 3-stitch I-cord border. Starting at the rounded left side edge and continuing up the left front, neckline and then down the right front edge to the begin of the rounded corner. Stopping there would have been all right, but the I-cord edging would have created a dip at the transition point to the regular edge. Why not continue the edging along the bottom as there seemed to be enough yarn left to continue.

Working on the i-cord edging and liking it

..ran out of yarn 15 cm before the end

Well, my optimism often outpaces the reality in my knitting, especially, when it comes to estimates of how much yarn is left or needed. Now, the next decision needed to be made: unravel and leave only the front edge with an I-cord or find more yarn. I thought I had a small amount left aside somewhere and I started to look for the bag. Since I just had gone though a phase of re-organizing our small space and found new nooks and  corners to stash yarn and fibre I was unable to find it for at least one day.

But there it was: The bag and in it a swatch of the green yarn. My savior to finish the I-cord edging. Now, let’s see how the fit will be after washing and blocking.

In the course of searching for the extra yarn/swatch I found this beautifully dyed Manos De Uruguay extrafine merino top braid and thought it would be a great addition to my Tour de Fleece spinning,

Half of the roving split into 8 thin strips

full spindle (4 thin strips)

Single yarn wound onto bobbin

Tour de Fleece (TdF) is an online spinning event through ravelry and instagram in which people set a “winning” goal. Mine was to spin the three pencil rovings of organic cotton and to spin every day. The latter was easy and fun, but spinning the cotton challenged me and I was not too excited about the muted natural colours. The green roving was the solution and by using my Schacht spindle instead of a wheel I had a portable “to go” spin project for the days I would be travelling. It was real fun seeing the colours progress. The only downside is the colour transfer to my slightly moist fingers staining them a funny green. By the end of the TdF I had spun three skeins of cotton and about 1/3 of the green merino as singles.

Goals accomplished! The cotton skeins will most likely be knit into a small colour-work cowl, while the green merino singles are destined to be chain-plied into a 3-ply yarn. I am aiming for high-twist ply since I am planning to knit a pair of socks out of that gorgeous colour.

I wish you all happy spinning, knitting and crafting! Thank you, for joining me on my journey. Yours, Maike

Travel has been the focus of the past few weeks and in the past I regarded it as an opportunity for dedicated knitting, crocheting or spinning time. Sitting on a plane or in a car or train is perfect for uninterrupted crafting, I thought. Well, that was until I realized that the time of travel – night flights, especially, I spent sleeping – and the destination – in cities we walk a lot – does make a huge difference. Thus, finding that progress does not come as quickly as imagined. After knitting a lot of items for personal or family use it was time to invest into some charity crafting. The first opportunity came through my weekly crochet group where a few weeks ago the organizers handed out some yarn and two patterns to crochet squares for a blanket. I was excited to try new patterns and learned how to create cables and little nubs in crochet. Plus, it broadened my knowledge of crochet abbreviations. A great learning experience!

crochet squares for blanket

Mosaic pattern hat for charity

adult hat

Another opportunity to knit something for a good cause came when one of the local Meetup groups announced an “April: month of knitting for charity”. I jumped right in with some leftover, easy-care yarn and a style of knitting I wanted to try for a while: Mosaic. To create the mosaic pattern one alternates colours every two rows and only knits one colour at a time. The intricate patterns occur when some stitches are not knit but slipped from the left to the right hand needle. Creating an elongated stitch that carries the colour to the next colour change row. It looks a little like bars and lines assembled to create a graphic pattern best shown off in two strongly contrasting colours. That is an improvement to be make next time. I think I fell in love with this style of knitting and am plotting another hat or may be even a scarf to see the possibilities.

My other two projects are coming along with the crochet flower poncho on its second darker pink row nearing the neck hole opening.

Flower poncho front 2/3 done

Icelandic blouse cardigan

The “Icelandic blouse” variation cardigan knit in my hand-spun had a little “hang-up” when I tried it on for sizing after closing the shoulder seams and found it very tight around my body. As the plan is to affix two buttons to the top part it would fall quite open over the stomach area. Which I really didn’t want to pronounce that much. So, there I was deliberating my options:  1. unravel all my knitting at least three weeks worth and knit it an inch wider since I now knew I had enough yarn or 2. let it go, hope that it can be blocked another 3 inches wider – Hey, its wool! It may work! 🙂 – or think of something else. These options had to sit  with me for a while and percolate until I was comfortable to decide. At last, the seams were unraveled, four more rows were added for more ease in the sleeves and a tiny bit more length in the body. Now the shoulder seams are closed again and stitches for one sleeve have been picked up and are knit in the round with a 2-stitch decrease every 20 rows. I think I will be happy with the cardigan even if falls open on the lower part.

The cotton grown in Abu Dhabi has been all spun up and became a fingering- to sport-weight 3-ply yarn with about 40 m of length for 15 gm of cotton. It is really a very small amount, but still took some hours to finish. The most difficult part being the plying from the “turtles” of my Turkish spindle. Even though, I tried a lazy kate set-up the the singles didn’t move easily and sometimes broke. In the future I will try and wind the “turtles” onto a plying bobbin and hope that will make it a smoother experience. Now, I am happy to return the yarn to the owner of the cotton plant.

Set-up for plying the cotton

finished cotton yarn

One of the plans I made before moving to Abu Dhabi was to start dyeing my own yarn or fibre. I had taken an introduction afternoon with a friend of mine in Vancouver and purchased Greener shade dyes which moved with us last May. In July last year I had another dye-session with a friend from my local knit group using all food-dyes and learned another technique.It was a good reminder what other equipment (buckets for rinsing, vinegar for the dye-solutions, etc) I needed to acquire before I could start. The buckets – old, large yogurt containers were easy to collect – and the used microwave dedicated to yarn dyeing arrived in November last year as a gift from another fellow knitter. So, there was really no reason to not start earlier. But I was worried about potential spills or contamination of the apartment when weighing out the dyes which still contain some heavy metal components, albeit less than other brands. But before the anniversary of my arrival in the UAE came about I set a day and just started. Making the stock solutions took an surprising amount of time almost preventing me from being able to at least try them out once before the weekend arrived. I wanted to see if my Depth of shade (DOS) of 2% would work when diluted 1:2 with a 50% vinegar solution. During the preparation of the stock solutions I noticed that some of them ended up being a suspension with a bit of sediment on the bottom. My balance for weighing the powder only shows weights down to 1 gm and I knew that weighing 2 gm would not be very accurate. In the end it all did not matter that much. I do not plan on recreating colours exactly at this point of time and despite the sediment all colours diluted well with the vinegar and dyed the 40 gm of roving in a lovely rainbow. I can’t wait to spin it up and see the colours dancing along.

work station set up

last rinse in cold water with a little vinegar

rainbow-dyed merino roving

Thank you, for following along my crafting and travels for the past year! Maike