Knerdy Knitting
where spelling isn't as important as awesome

Inspired by the Ravelry group Ply-By-Night, some of us at Corvallis Ravelers decided to have a spin-a-long using wool from Bellwether Wool Company. (Whew! That’s a lot of links!)

Here’s how it worked: we each got the same 4 oz of roving (2 oz of aqua, 1 oz of blue, and 1 oz of lime green) and then secretly, under cover of darkness, spun it up any way we pleased. The goal was to see how different people could start with the same roving and get wildly different yarns.

I decided to card my roving with hand carders, just barely mixing the colors. I mixed half the the aqua with the green and then the other half of the aqua with the blue. Here are a few photos of the process.

I then spun two singles, one from each of the mixes. I spun fairly loosely (as is my tendency) using a long draw. This, along with the carding, made for super fuzzy yarn.

I then plied the singles to create a balanced yarn. I believe I described it at Knit Night as “cat yak,” and I’m sticking to that. Not pleased with the results at all. But maybe with the right project it will look lovely. Here’s hoping!

It was hard to come up with a topic for this Project Friday.  Not because I haven’t been completeing projects — I think I’ve finished three different gifts in the last week — but because I haven’t been excited about any of the projects.  I already talked about the Dr Horrible wristers.  I already talked about the Snowflake hat.  (Which I really should rename because we all know snowflakes don’t have four points like the pattern has, but I digress.)  The only other projects I’ve been working on are a pair of Fetching and a very plain stockinette sock.  All in jewel tones and cool browns and purples.  Very appropriate to the time of year, and no doubt stylishly suited to the recipiants.

But.

I was getting tired out them.  So I started swatching some of my early handspun.  It’s from Abstract Fibers, in the fantastic colorway Chartreuse.  It’s all orange and rust and yellow and green.  I love it.  I love it so much I luff it.  With two Fs.  But I’m not casting anything new on until I finished my Christmas presents.  So I’m *swatching*, not knitting.

Ok, fine.  I’m knitting.  It’s so beautiful!  Even though I only have a few inches, I really enjoy knitting it and squishing it and petting it.  The pattern is the Yarn Harlot’s One Row Handspun Scarf, which works perfectly for the fluffy handspun yarn.

There are several conclusions we may draw from this.  One, that I need to be working on a project just for me sometimes.  I am not a completely charitable knitter.  Two, that I don’t knit just to turn out projects.  I am happiest when I enjoy the yarn I’m working with.  And three, that it may shock my sixteen-year-old self, but I like autumn colors more than winter colors.  Be still my screaming gothy heart.

How could I resist its power?

Sunday morning at OFFF, I discovered in short order that (1) my class was actually in the morning, (2) my instructor was running late, and (3) my class was going to be moved to the afternoon. This left me and Cynthia with no knitting, no fiber, and no car keys to obtain either one. Clearly I was fated to make one last purchase.

I chose some yummy superwash merino dyed up beautifully by Maisy Day. So what if there was less then 2 ounces? It called to me. So I hung out with the PDX Knitbloggers and began to spin. This was when I only knew one method, so I used the largest ratio, short draw. As usual, it came out slightly underspun and very sproingy. (Yes, that is a word.) Spinning all morning I finished the entire two ounces and got about 60 yards after it was plied.

So it’s beautiful, sure, but what can you do with 60 yards? Not much. Even little projects seemed to require more yarn. What I really wanted was a pair of mitts, but no go. So clearly I had to make up my own pattern.

I started with Fetching, the extremely popular Knitty pattern. Even these little mitts called for too much yarn. So I went up two needle sizes, cut out one of the cable twists at the wrist, and made the hands slightly shorter. It worked wonderfully, and I even had ten yards of yarn left. I used this to pick up around the wrists and knit another two rows; without these rows the mitts were pretty but not long enough to be useful. Now they are both! Knitting them up took about a day.

Being so small and slight (both in size and in woman hours of work), I call them Slightly Fetching. And I’ve been wearing them nearly constantly ever since.

Aren't they Fetching?