Handspun cobwebs

Just in time for Halloween, I have my cobweb... Not from spiders, but from my spindle.

You might have seen me plying this yarn (or faffing around with a tangly mess of thread) at GSoY. I spun the singles for Tour de Fleece and I've finally plied, measured, and finished it.

I spun this yarn on my Russian spindle, and it's by far the finest yarn I've ever spun. By my measurements, I managed to get 400 yards of 2-ply 38 wpi yarn out of 22 grams of merino/silk fiber. That's enough for a delicate wisp of a shawlette, hopefully. Since I spun it on my Russian, I'm looking into Orenburg lace motifs to knit with it.

I'm a little bit enchanted by this yarn. I've never spun anything finer, and rarely knit with anything as fine. And maybe it's so fine as to be a little bit impractical (ie, do I really want to knit with it...?), but that just adds to the magic. It's so soft, and barely there at all, with a tiny bit of sheen, and a lovely white color with just the slightest touch of pale honey-blonde from the silk. I hope whatever I knit with it can do it justice.

~Joyuna

Mysterious Yarn Graffiti at Glasgow Botanic Gardens

During my time in Glasgow, I made a trip to the Glasgow Botanic Gardens. The garden features the Kibble Palace, a huge elegant Victorian glasshouse, and hundreds of amazing plants.

It was a wonderful way to spend a morning. It's cool, and quiet, and a photographer's paradise. I saw some breathtaking flowers, some fascinating carnivorous plants, and some lovely marble statues. At the foot of one of the statues, though, I noticed something odd...

It's what appears to be two pumpkins - one knitted, one crocheted. I asked around at the School of Yarn, but no one knew anything about it. Who were these mysterious botanical yarnbombers? I might never know...


ETA: The mystery has been solved!
~Joyuna

Elven Slippers - A bit of elegance for your feet

Need a quick gift? Want to keep your toes warm during those cold nights? Or maybe you just want to dress up your feet? Whether you're sitting on a high tree branch or lounging on the forest floor, these leafy little socks will look sweet and elegant. Just right for any elf or human in your life: Elven Slippers.

The slippers are knit from the toe up with picots at the top of the foot and cuff, and a lovely lace leaf pattern on either side of the instep. Leafy i-cord laces keep them securely on your feet, or wear them plain.

for $4.00

Yarn: About 160 yds of fingering weight yarn (Shown: Juno Fibre Arts Myrtle, Merino/Tencel) and less than 40 yds of contrast color yarn.
Needles: US 2.5 / 3mm DPNs
Special Techniques: Knitting in the round, Judy's Magic Cast On, short rows, charts



~Joyuna

Mini Mania - GSoY Goodies

When I took my trip up north for The Glasgow School of Yarn, I made myself a resolution: Not to buy any full skeins of yarn. My stash is large enough, and I've got a move coming up so both space and cash are important to keep.

Luckily, several of the vendors at the marketplace were offering up mini skeins, perfect for my Beekeeper's Quilt. The minis allowed me to sample a variety of new yarns and dyers, giving me just a taste of their yarns.

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Glasgow School of Yarn

I spent this past weekend up in Scotland for the Glasgow School of Yarn, organized by The Yarn Cake. The GSoY featured a marketplace; tea, cake, stew & coffee; workshops; and other festivities. It's just about the only event of its kind in Scotland. And what a fantastic time it was!

I took a class with Amy Singer about submitting designs to Knitty. Not only did she tell us some specifics about how to get patterns into Knitty, with its unique sensibility and competitive submissions, but also plenty of general tips for pattern writing and design anywhere.

Along with Amy, I also got to meet Ann Kingstone, Stephen West, and Carol Feller. What a thrill to be rubbing elbows with such greats! I also made a whole slew of new friends, both Glasgow locals and people like me who had travelled for it. And of course there were the awesome vendors, such as Skein Queen, The Yarn Yard, Ripple Crafts and also a booth for P/HOP, giving out patterns to benefit Doctors Without Borders.

The event took place in the stunning Mackintosh Church (also called Queen's Cross Church) in Glasgow's West End. This church, designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, was an ideal venue for the GSoY Design Competition - where designers were asked to come up with their best Mackintosh-inspired design. There were some really stunning entries. The winner was Shuttermonkey with her Beloved Rose bag and beret set. My personal favorites were Lucy Hague's Glasgow Rose shawlette, and Susan Hanlon's Hill House scarf. My design, Rose Tendrils socks, was awarded runner-up.

(Rose Tendrils will be available soon... once it's test knit, it will be released)

I'm so glad I made it up to Glasgow! I'd never been before, and it was a long trip, but it was worth it!

~Joyuna

Vicuna fiber - A little taste of luxury

As part of my fiber sampler project, I got a small bag of vicuna fiber from Wingham Wool Work. I spun it on my tiny spindle into a tiny, lovely skein.

These creatures were once extremely endangered; at one point there were reckoned to be fewer than 6,000 animals left. However, the vicuna is making a comeback. Even so, my little cloud of fiber came with a CITES document proving that it was imported legally!

At about £8 for 10g, it doesn't come cheap, of course. For a little perspective, if you don't buy fiber: It's about six times pricier than cashmere, and a whopping 50 times more expensive than a common sheep breed's wool. However, 10g of vicuna is a surprisingly large amount - I managed to spin 101 yards of yarn out of it.

This is noil, which means it's shorter than most vicuna fiber - it's probably a byproduct of spinning for commercial fabric. But actually, I didn't find it too hard to spin. The fibers are short, but they drafted easily and I didn't find my yarn breaking often. I used the double drafting technique to keep the yarn even. The end result was unbelievably soft, with a rich natural cinnamon brown color.

~Joyuna

Pattern Drafting for Hand Knits

Robin over at 'How to Become a Professional Knitter' is doing a series on pattern drafting and sizing, and how it relates to knitting. Since information on knitwear grading is hard to come by, many budding designers might find it helpful: Pattern Drafting for Hand Knits, part 1 and part 2 (with part 3 forthcoming).

Robin explains how store-bought clothing sizing works, and why it may not fit the way we'd like. Basically, each category of sizes (such as Juniors, Misses, and Petites) is cut for a different body shape, and a certain 'average' woman's shape. Of course, very few women are actually 'average' shape - but the goal is to create a size that adequately fits the majority of people, even if it doesn't perfectly fit most (or even any) people.

It's good food for thought for anyone who tries to size up or down a pattern - whether it's for publication, or just modifying a pattern to fit one's self better. I've upsized sweater patterns before, and there's more to it than just multiplying everything by one number (unfortunately). As size goes up, different body parts grow in different ways, and when you get into plus sizes, women carry weight in different areas. You've probably heard of 'apple' and 'pear' shaped bodies, but it gets much more complicated than that. Some women have big bellies and small busts, big bust and a tiny waist, big arms and backside but no belly... and so on. Of course, no one can write a pattern that covers all this wide variance of shapes. So, we're left with a sizing system that works adequately well, most of the time, but not perfectly well all of the time.

~Joyuna

My Travel Hexipuff Kit

So I've been working busily on my hexipuffs for The Beekeeper's Quilt. I mentioned in my last post that they're great for knitting on the go - I've knit them on the train, in the car, at knitting group, and at friends' houses.

At first thought, one might not think of hexipuffs as a good travel project - after all, you have to stuff them before you bind off! But, if I do say so myself, I think I've got it down to a science. Here's my hexipuff travel bag:

The Bag. This is my favorite project bag, a Ravelry bag with an adorable sheep-to-sock design. It's just a cotton drawstring bag, very squishy, making it easy to scrunch up and toss into my purse.

The Project. I'm doing my puffs on Magic Loop instead of DPNs, lest I risk bending or breaking or losing a needle. Normally I'm a DPN devotee, but for the hexipuffs I've decided to go with a circ and I'm glad I did. As a bonus, the Turkish CO is a cinch.

The Yarn. I have loads of leftover balls of sock yarn. I haven't really paid any regard to matching up colors; hopefully I'll be able to arrange the finished puffs in a way that looks nice.
Since I'm easily bored, I carry two or three different balls of sock yarn with me so that when I finish one puff, I can do the next in a different color.

The Stuffing. I carry a mini-ziplock bag of stuffing in my hexipuff bag. I usually carry enough to stuff at least 3 or 4 honeycombs. Whenever it's running low, I grab another handful from my big stuffing bag.
I stuff my puffs quite solidly, with leftover yarn and fiber scraps. Whenever I snip off my yarn ends or find a matted bit of top, I put it into my stuffing bag. I have enough recycled stuffing that stuffing my puffs is no problem.

The Hook. I keep a tiny crochet hook to do the 3-needle bind off and weave in the end. It's actually not a crochet hook, but a double-ended handy tool thing from Susan Bates. It's very small and very handy.

The Cutter. I have a round yarn cutter pendant to break the yarn. It's great because the blades don't catch on the yarn, so I can keep it loose in the project bag without worry. I don't have it strung onto a necklace, but I keep a length of yarn tied around it to make it easier to find.

The Puffs. I keep a few "reference puffs" in my project bag for comparison purposes. That way, my first puffs (hopefully) won't be super different from the ones I knit later on. Of course, working with so many different kinds of yarn, my gauge will vary and some hexagons will be bigger than others. But, if I have a few puffs for reference, I can stuff each one to roughly the same size and puffiness.

~Joyuna

Woolly Thoughts Design to Fit eBook - Review

As a new designer, I've been devouring everything I can find on designing knitwear - up to now, I've been designing what I know: small accessories - hats, mitts, socks, shawls. But eventually, I want to take it to the next level and design garments. Lucky for me, there are a number of books on this subject. They are mostly aimed at the home knitter rather than the knitwear designer, but the fundamentals are still useful. I already read and reviewed The Knitting Architect, and the next book I've been reading is Design to Fit by Pat Ashforth and Steve Plummer, the design duo otherwise known as Woolly Thoughts.

The Woolly Thoughts team are best known for their mathematical and modular patterns and their books Woolly Thoughts and Second Thoughts.

Design to Fit is a book of two parts. They were originally published separately as Creating Knitwear Designs and Making Knitwear Fit. Now, the two sections of the book are entitled I Have Designs on You and I Have the Measure of You.

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My First Hexipuffs

Yes, I've jumped on the honeycomb bandwagon. Feel free to roll your eyes; I care not! They are darned addicting little things. I plan to keep them in reserve as an on-going travel project, to take with me on the train or plane or car. They're lovely quick little things, easily memorized, with a nice clear pattern.

(Confused? I've started knitting The Beekeeper's Quilt by Tiny Owl Knits. It consists of hundreds of tiny stuffed knitted hexagons, which have been nicknamed 'hexipuffs'. It's taking Ravelry by storm.)

There's just something about them - they set off the 'finished object' centers of my brain when I want something done fast, and they keep startitis at bay. After all, when you can cast on & off in under an hour, you've both started something and finished something! Even though each puff is only a fraction of the quilt it will eventually be, each one is satisfying as a miniature project.

I also love yarn-scrap projects. I knit a lot of socks, and I've basically figured that this Beekeeper's Quilt will cost me all of $0 in yarn and stuffing. The yarn is leftover from the many pairs of socks I've knit, and the stuffing is yarn & fiber scraps. The project makes me feel nice and frugal. It's economical and green!

Over the course of my first day, I knit 5 hexipuffs - two of those in the car. I've got everything I need in a project bag - the yarn, needles, a handful of stuffing, a crochet hook and a thread cutter.

I've made a few cosmetic modifications to streamline the pattern - I'm doing the puffs on magic loop with the Turkish cast-on (the least fiddly CO I know for socks, and also totally seamless) and the crochet bindoff as written. Does it bother me a teensy little bit that the caston edge does not match the BO? Maybe a little, but not enough to take the time to kitchener the puffs closed. As it is, the puffs are quick, seamless, look decent, and very easy indeed.

~Joyuna

Joyarna on Twitter

If you don't already keep up with the blog via RSS or email, did you know you can follow on Twitter as well?

@Joyarna automatically updates every time the blog does, so the posts appear in your Twitter stream.

~Joyuna