Tour de Fleece: Angora/Merino blend

Tour de Fleece seemed to have gone by in a flash. It's over now, and I didn't finish everything I wanted to, but I did finish quite a lot and started on other things too.

One of my projects for the tour was this braid of Angora/Merino blend, which I dyed myself.

I plan to knit this gradient yarn into a shawl. The spinning isn't going quite as smoothly as I'd hoped, however. First, this top is quite a difficult spin. The fiber got compacted during dyeing, and the angora is very slippery, so even after fluffing it up it's tricky to draft. I pull at it and before I know it the fiber has slipped away and my spindle is on the floor. Ack.


My dye job wasn't super-even, either - it's blotchy, resulting in areas of super-saturation next to long lengths of pale pink. This yarn won't line up as evenly as the gradient I spun before, I can tell. It's going to be a little wilder, a little more rustic, a little more "conspicuously handspun". But I'm making peace with that fact. It's not perfect, but I do like the yarn I'm making.

And it's so, so soft.

I'm spinning it with a woollen-ish draw, and a tight twist - I did several samples and that's the combination I liked best. The yarn doesn't have much of the characteristic angora halo, yet, but that will develop with time. Hopefully the tight twist will reduce the risk of major shedding.

The shawl I'm planning to knit is a pretty simple half-circle shawl, mainly stockinette, which will allow the yarn to take center stage - it's going to be the star, without anything complex trying to compete with it. But before I think about that too much, I need to focus on getting the spinning done!

~Joyuna

Socks that tell a story - American Sock Knitting

I have a new design that's been a long time coming, but I'm very pleased to see it come to light - it's called From the Fields to the Stars, and it features in the new book American Sock Knitting.

American Sock Knitting is a book of sock patterns inspired by US states - mine takes inspiration from my home state of Ohio. Ohio is the birthplace of presidents, astronauts, innovators, those whose names end up in the history books; but it's also the home of farmers, factory workers, those who have shaped the country in an often-forgotten way.

These toe-up socks are a journey - from waving wheat fields, over the horizon, and up into a star-studded sky. They're fun knitting, too - they feature mini-cables, a touch of lace, and Fibonacci striping. You can knit a pair with a 50g ball each of the two colors, so they're great for stashbusting or leftovers. They are a real treat for a process knitter.


~Joyuna

FO: Handspun Francis sweater

This sweater is five years in the making.

I started spinning it not very long after I first learned to spin - I bought a load of wool top, and started spinning it on my toy wheel spindle.

The gray is a pool wool blend from Spunky Eclectic, and the cowl was knit from BFL/camel from HilltopCloud.


Parts of it are hilariously badly spun - underspun, overspun, thick and thin from super bulky to fingering. But it's amazing how knitting can even things out.
(I also alternated skeins, so the differences from skein to skein were not as noticeable. Still, the hand of the fabric is very different at the neckline than on the sleeves...)


The pattern is Francis Revisited, a simple top-down raglan with a cowl neck. I made several mods, which you can read on the Rav project page. The main ones are I made the cowl bigger, and I switched out seed stitch edges in favor of hems.

It's too short, it's heavy, it's rustic, but I'm just so proud of it. I spun, and knit, a sweater. What used to be fluff, is now a garment that will keep me warm (very warm).


And that wool - that wool has been with me through thick and thin (er, pun not intended). It's been with me through carpet beetles and moths, through a trans-Atlantic move, through no less than seven different bedrooms. When I first got that lovely, soft grey wool, I was living in a dorm room my first year of university. How far we have come together! And with luck, we'll go many places more together in the future.

~Joyuna

Ravelry's new Spinning features

If you haven't heard yet, Casey and Christina have been working on some neat new features for spinners on Ravelry.

The features are still in beta testing, so if you want to try them out now you'll need to input a special swatching code.

I was so excited, I just couldn't resist inputting the code. Not everything is finished yet, but I like what I see!

It starts by importing the 'handspun' tab of your stash and changing them into spinning projects - just like knitting projects, with start/finish dates and a progress bar.

When you edit a spinning project, you can add attributes like the spinning style and fiber prep. There's also lots of boxes to add stats about your yarn like wpi, twist angle, and more. You can also record what tools you used for spinning that yarn.

Coming soon is a fiber stash - a separate place to keep fiber in preparation for a spinning project. Yay! I can't wait to see the new features as they come in.

~Joyuna

Open Letter to Wensleydale Sheep

Dear Wensleydale,

I'm sorry if I've ever said bad things about longwools in the past. I didn't understand you back them. You don't act like the wool I'm used to, and I was prejudiced, and I regret that. You are really something special.


Before, I didn't understand what to do with you. But now I recognize your true beauty. Combed out into little nests, spun fine, something magical happens. It's like if wool and silk and mohair had a baby together. Lustrous and sleek, and no, not an all-rounder, not good for every project, but more of a specialized fiber. And I feel like I've finally hit your sweet spot, and it's glorious.


Plus, you're like the Komondor dog of sheep.

Odelay!
(source)
~Joyuna