Finished: Combospin, Harvest cardigan

It is finished! I blogged before about casting on my Harvest sweater, and the process of spinning it from various braids of different kinds of fibres.

The pattern is Harvest, a brilliant seamless and free pattern from Tincanknits. This pattern is lovely and straightforward, and there's something very satisfying about how little finishing there is to do at the end - since the buttonband is knit at the same time as the body, once you've bound off, you're done. This also makes it perfect for stripy handspun yarn, since the stripes wrap around the entire garment.

I did do a few mods that I picked up from some other Ravelry projects - one was knitting the sleeve cuffs perpendicular to the sleeves, which gives a nice mock-ribbing effect. Another is adding knit-in pockets - this is my first time using this technique, and I'm really pleased with it. Basically you knit waste yarn over the area you want to place your pocket, then slip the stitches back and re-knit. Then, you have two sets of live stitches - one to knit the ribbing over top of your pocket, and the other to knit the back lining. Then I sewed the lining against the front of the cardigan to finish the pocket.

This was a very quick knit - just over a month from cast off to bind off, and I was working on other projects during that time as well. Stockinette and garter stitch go quickly, even more so when I can't wait to see what stripe will appear next.

I did use one psychological trick to keep me motivated while knitting: after I separated for the sleeves, instead of continuing down the body, I immediately knit the sleeves next. Sleeves are a bugbear of mine: I always underestimate how long they will take, and I find them very tedious. Especially when they're the one thing standing between me and a finished sweater. So, by knitting the sleeves in the middle of the project, it prevented a good deal of frustration and made the project go much more quickly.

The sleeves are the only part of the sweater where I alternated skeins - I knit them in 3-round stripes. This is because I wanted the width of the stripes to roughly match the body, and if I had just knit from one skein the small circumference of the sleeves would have caused much wider stripes. The effect is subtle but I'm very happy with how it turned out.

All in all, I am really happy with this cardigan! I took it out for a test drive yesterday and it was perfectly cosy. I can tell I'll get a lot of wear out of this one.

So, to summarise, I went from this disparate pile of fibre:

To a huge plying ball:

To this yarn:

To this sweater:

Project page on Ravelry

~Joyuna

Bonus: More fun with the 700g yarn ball

I mentioned in my last post that I wound my latest spinning project into one giant ball for plying.

The great yarnball

I have some extra photos of the massive ball that didn't fit in the last post. Because of course, if I'm going to have a 700g yarn ball, I'm going to have a photo shoot.

Cat for scale

The three plies of yarn

Winding the very, very large plying ball. Yes, this took ages, and yes, my hand was aching by the end.

Was it worth it? Probably not. But it was pretty funny having a basketball-sized ball of yarn.

One sweater-to-be, balanced on my head

~Joyuna

The one-ball sweater | Combospin and embracing chaos

I've been working on a really interesting project for the past several months - a Combospin. I'm a little late to the boat on this method, but I was so excited when I found out about it, and saw the amazing results of other people on Ravelry.

Combospinning is a way to combine individual braids of hand-dyed fibre into a cohesive yarn for a larger project. If you have a habit of stashing 100g here and there that you never know what to do with, this is an ideal way to turn them into a sweater-quantity of yarn.

The process is very simple: Take all your fibre (in braids, in batts, or any other put-up) and break them up into smaller pieces. Mix them up in a big bag or box, and just spin one piece after another.

So I shopped my stash, and I filled in the gaps with some extra purchases, and found 750g of fibre along the yellow-orange spectrum. It wasn't an exact process, and in fact, having a few braids that don't quite 'fit' added more interest to the project.

This is spinning by embracing chaos. You do not plan out a sequence of stripes, you do not (need to) match up colours or fibres or even drafting styles - you can combine combed top and carded batts, and no one will arrest you. The spinning police aren't coming for you.

The resulting yarn is perfectly "conspicuously handspun". The plies blend together in some parts, toning each other down, while at other spots a stripe of bright colour will pop out when the plies align. It's a similar effect to fractal spinning, on a large scale and more random. Embrace the barber-pole.

This is a sort of polar opposite project to my just-finished handspun sweater. In that project, I was focused on consistency: all the same fibre, all the same spinning technique, all the same thickness. I was, more or less, trying to imitate a factory-produced millspun yarn. In this combospin, I am letting go of consistency and order, and creating something that you couldn't ever buy in a shop.

I spun them up, and the spinning process was addictive - just one more length of fibre, just one more bobbin...

Each one of my three plies nicely filled up my set of 5 bobbins - very satisfying. When I mixed up the bobbins and wound them off, I decided to wind each ply into one continuous ball. Why? Just to keep things organised, really.

And when I finished each ply, I thought I might as well wind them all into one big plying ball...

Why? There isn't a good reason. I just felt like being extra. I wanted to see what it would look like. It was glorious!

Yes, that's nearly 750g of yarn in one ball as big as my head.

Of course, I had to break the yarn into separate skeins when it came to plying. And just like the spinning, the plying process went by very quickly because it was so gratifying to see the colours combine in such interesting ways.

And then I had this yarn: yellow and orange, but also flecked with lengths of red, and brown, and green and even purple. Crunchy downs wool and silky rayon and buttery-soft merino. A fabulous buffet of colours and textures. View my stash details on Rav.

This is my third handspun sweater project. I've enjoyed them all, but I've definitely had the most fun with this one.

I've already cast on. Now, I just have to keep on knitting!

~Joyuna

Spinning for pleasure | Polypay Polar Dip Pullover

I finished a sweater. It was a long, long time in the making.

Do you remember when I bought the wool?

Since I first spun the Polypay breed, I was enchanted with it. So bouncy, with just the right balance of softness and 'woolliness'.

And the carded roving was a true pleasure to spin long-draw.

Sometimes I feel like the reason I have continued to knit and spin after all these years is not because I particularly love sweaters and hats and socks - it's because I love the sensual aspects of yarn. The colours and textures, the spring in my hand.

This project has certainly been an example of that. All through spinning, and all through knitting, I took immense pleasure in this wool. Every few rows, I would look back at the fabric under my needles and couldn't help but smile. It's soft and elastic and just a little fuzzy.

I'm really happy with the fit, and the sweater overall. I've come a long way since my first handspun sweater!

This yarn is thinner, and more consistent, while still having a 'homespun' character. I love the texture it gives.

The pattern is Polar Dip, a basic top-down raglan with some simple but attractive colorwork at the yoke. It was easy knitting with just a few details to test my skills - I am an expert at the tubular bindoff now! Grafting is always a little bit of a pain, but it does give an excellent clean and elastic finish to the edges.

By the way, Shady Side Farm is still selling their wool roving on Etsy. I can't recommend it enough :) ShadySideFarm on Esty

~Joyuna

Flax from seed to shuttle

Since taking up weaving, I've had the opportunity to explore fibres I have never really enjoyed working with as a knitter. I've been using my tahkli and charkha to spin up loads of cotton (fantastic mindless spinning - when you can get in the groove, it's magic) and I've now started to become interested in flax/linen.

It's funny that two different plant fibres can be so dramatically different - where cotton is short, flax is incredibly long. Where cotton is soft and insubstantial, flax is unbreakably strong (really, it will cut your fingers before it will break). And while the cotton plant flourishes in hot sunny weather, flax is comfortable in the cool and cloudy climes of northern Europe.

This last point is what inspired me to order a flax starter kit from Flaxland. I tried to grow cotton last year, but it didn't work very well in always-overcast England. The Flaxland kit allows me to try out every stage of turning flax to linen, from growing to processing to yarn.

The kit really has everything - it is an excellent value! It contained:
- A packet of fibre flax seeds
- A booklet on the history of flax
- Some scutched fibre ready to be hackled/combed, enough to last me quite some time
- A 'breaker/hackle' - essentially a block of wood with teeth carved on one end :) a simple tool but effective!
- A metal comb for finer combing after hackling
- A face mask, as processing flax gets dusty
- A spindle - kind of a boat anchor, but it has these charming markings noting the traditional direction for spinning wool (clockwise / Z twist) vs flax (counterclockwise / S twist)
- A set of spools and a kind of mini-lazy-kate to ply off of
- Even some ribbon for dressing a distaff!

I tossed down some of the seeds in an empty patch in my garden (densely, so that the plants will compete with each other for the sun and grow nice and tall). They are doing well so far:

Who knows if they will make it to the end of the season, and if they do, if I will be able to successfully complete the long and involved process of turning it into fibre - but either way, I am having a fun time of it!

As for the linen I've spun? I warped up some cotton on the loom and am weaving some small towels in a mix of cotton and linen threads. I'll let you have a look when I've finished.

~Joyuna

Interweave Earth Day Bargains

It's Earth Day (please tell me I'm not the only one who didn't realise until I saw the Google homepage) and Interweave is having a sale on digital items (get it? because they're paperless).

Digital back issues and ebooks are on sale, but the big draw for me is $6.99 videos. That's only £4.65, a steal compared to their usual price.

I really appreciate Interweave's spinning videos because, for the ones I have watched at least, they cover the topics at great depth and the presenters are all very knowledgeable. They go beyond the basics and I really feel like I've ended up learning something new.

The Interweave Shop's search and filtering options leave something to be desired, so here are some of my recommendations:

Three Bags Full by Judith MacKenzie-McCuin is an absolute pleasure for anyone who enjoys processing raw fleece or wants to learn. Judith is a wonderful, calming, and extremely knowledgeable instructor and I would in fact recommend any of her videos.

The Gentle Art of Plying is another great video of Judith's. You might think you know it all, that plying is an elementary step in the creation of yarn -- far from it. Judith talks in great depth about a wider variety of topics within the field of plying than you even knew existed.

Rita Buchanan is sort of a polar opposite to Judith MacKenzie-McCuin, in terms of energy and presence. Where Judith is calm, Rita is energetic. Where Rita is lively and silly, Judith is tranquil and smooth. Both display a great passion for their crafts, and I love watching them both, though they are completely different.

Rita's In Praise of Simple Cloth video is not really instructional - It features techniques, but it's more of a conversation about lots of different aspects of crafting (spinning, weaving, knitting, and various other fibery bits). How I Spin is decidedly more instructional and full of a lot of interesting information. I have enjoyed watching and re-watching both of them, very much.


And what am I getting myself? Well, here's a few of the ones I'm picking up...
Spinning Cotton by Stephenie Gaustad, because I just re-discovered my charkha and would really love to weave myself some towels, pillowcases, a blouse...

Handwoven Garment Construction, to help me with the goal above once I've spun all that yarn

Make That Yarn, Reproducing Millspun Yarns - A topic that really piqued my interest when I heard about the video.

Respect the Spindle: The Video - I already have and enjoy the book, as well as Abby's other video on drafting (which I wholeheartedly recommend). Normally I wouldn't be sure if I would learn anything new from what is marketed as a basic video on spindles... but every time I watch or read something from Abby, I learn something new, so at this price I can't resist.

The sale ends on Friday the 24th, so I suggest picking up some bargains while you can.

~Joyuna

Woolly selfie

It's finally starting to feel like springtime, but I was very woolly the other day:

Around my neck is a recently-finished small shawl, Wandering the Moor - which I spun in several shades of grey from a Shetland sheep's fleece.

On my shoulders is Layter, a sweater I finished quite some time ago and have worn many times, but have somehow not gotten any decent photos of yet. It was an easy and fun knit, and it's a great finished object as well - easy to throw on and nice and warm.

I have to wear the wool while I still can - and in the meantime, I'm knitting lots of socks to keep myself in handknits through the spring and summer.

~Joyuna

Kickstart It: Electric Eel Wheel e-spinner

This Kickstarter campaign has, at the time of writing, already surpassed its funding goal by over 6x. However, I wanted to highlight it on the blog as a unique product - a budget-friendly electric spinner.

The Electric Eel Wheel is an e-spinner (think motorised spinning wheel) made from low-cost parts and an open-source design. That means, if you're handy with DIY, you could make one yourself! Myself, I prefer to order one pre-assembled - at a price that's cheaper even than many conventional spinning wheels.

Well, does "electric" automatically mean "better"? As someone who prefers my spindles over my wheel, obviously I don't always believe in replacing methods that already work well with more complex automated solutions. But different tools are good for different things. And there are two things right away that I can see an e-spinner excelling with:

1. Speed/Fast twist insertion - I enjoy spinning cotton. My wheel's ratios are far too low to make it practical to spin it with that, and I find it difficult to spin cotton on a drop spindle, so I spin it on a tahkli or a charkha - both of which are excellent tools for spinning cotton, however both fill up quickly with only a small amount of yarn. The Electric Eel could be great for spinning large amounts of cotton at once, putting in enough twist quickly (cotton likes a lot of twist).

2. Super lazy plying - My current plying workflow is typically to wind a two-stranded plying ball, put the ball into a bowl or jar, and then ply onto a large low-whorl spindle. With an e-spinner, plying would be a breeze - attach the plying ball to the bobbin, set the speed, and go (adjusting the hooks and scotch tension every so often I suppose, so the plying remains consistent throughout!). It almost feels like cheating... but as I have several handspun sweater projects in progress, it seems like a very attractive option. The bobbins also reportedly hold about 6 oz (170g) of yarn!

I have thought about trying out an e-spinner for quite some time now, for the above reasons. An e-spinner is also, obviously, way more portable than a full-sized wheel (though, as a spindle aficionado, I've already got that point covered).

Most of the e-spinners on the market are, however, not cheap. I don't say this as a point against other e-spinners: Everyone I know who's used a Hansen Minispinner, for instance, has said they are worth every penny, and I believe them. However, I also think it's valuable to have an entry-level priced e-spinner on the market - so I'm very excited for this project!

~Joyuna

Proud as a Peacock (of my sewing attempts)

While I'm a knitter and a spinner, I don't consider myself generally 'crafty'. However, I have been wanting to learn some basic stitching, mostly because I'd also like to get into weaving a little bit (have to use up all that handspun somehow, right?). When I heard about Hillary's Country Crafts Competition, I couldn't resist the lovely fabric with a large peacock print to try and make something special out of it.



I got an idea to make a coordinated set of bags I could use for my favorite crafts. I really wanted to take advantage of the large peacock motifs, so I planned out carefully where I would cut my pieces out.


The first thing that occurred to me to make was a sleeve for my spindle tube -- I have this thick cardboard tube, originally meant to protect wine bottles, which is big enough to hold any of my spindles and plenty of fiber to boot. Any time I travel with my spindle, I take it with me in this sturdy case. It's incredibly practical, but pretty? Not so much. A cover for the tube would be simple enough to construct, and make my spindle tube truly unique.


As an added special touch, I took a little bit of silk combed top, grabbed my spindle, and spun up some thread thin and smooth, worsted-style. Silk is one of my favorite fibers to spin, but in knitting its uses are limited to drapey objects such as shawls. As thread, it's smooth and shiny and lovely to work with.
(Excuse the weird picture; in lieu of a spool I wrapped it around a pen ;)


Actually sewing up the sleeve was quite simple. I took the raw meter of fabric...
...cut out a section with a nice peacock motif on it, and sewed up my tube inside-out. I folded down the top lip of the fabric, sewing it down with my decorative silk thread.

After that, all that was left to do was close up the bottom, which I did a bit... 'creatively', I think! But it's secure and effective, so that's what matters right?

After finishing the spindle case I had plenty of fabric left, and I can never have enough project bags, so:

I'm really pleased with this bag: it is big enough to hold any small/medium-sized project, like a hat, pair of socks, or shawl - or three or four 100g skeins of yarn. The fabric is reasonably heavy, and the bag isn't going to get the rough wear that a handbag would for instance, so I didn't worry about a lining.
The construction is dead simple: one long rectangle making the front, bottom, and back, and two side pieces. The sides are triangular, so the bottom is wider than the top, meaning it stands up pretty well on its own, and closes with a button and some matching ribbon.


Finally, I also fashioned a matching notions pouch to go with the bag. I included a bit of the same ribbon in the side seams, like piping, and I think it's a really cute effect.
This bag's the ideal size for little bits and pieces - a needle gauge, a pen, some pattern notes, and scissors for instance.

I can see myself getting a lot of use out of these bags I've fashioned - and I get a little thrill out of the fact I made them myself. I definitely have a lot to learn about sewing still - but I've had fun diving in so far! Thanks to Hillarys for letting me play around with the pretty fabric.

~Joyuna

2013, the Knitblog in Review

2013 was an interesting year for me - plenty of good, plenty of bad, and I certainly can't say it was boring. My job and other things have kept me from knitting as much this year as I have in years past, but looking back I am actually surprised at how much I accomplished.

If I had to reduce my 2013 to one thing, fiber-wise, it would be fleece. My very first FO post of the year was knit from yarn spun & processed from raw fleece (that Calorimetry remains my constant companion this winter, too). My fiber storage quickly filled up with gorgeous fleece over the course of the year - especially as I learned the versatility that some fibers offer. I even fell in love with some wool I never thought I would.

I delved further into spinning this year, enhancing my experience with many new tools - a niddy noddy for skeining, a set of Valkyrie combs which I adore, a book charkha and, most notably, my first full-size spinning wheel.

In knitting, I began to further explore colorwork - knitting beautiful Bunty Mitts and some wibbly socks, casting on the engaging Leighton House handwarmers, and knitting a sweater with a touch of stranding (and a matching hat!). I think my favorite FO of this year though, and also the very last, was a handspun scarf I knit for my sister out of natural Shetland lambswool.

My designs were published in two books, Stitching in the Stacks and American Sock Knitting, which was really a thrill. I also had a lot of fun writing up an interactive gift-knitting guide for time-strapped knitters.

Plenty of interesting things happened this year. A robot came to visit Knit Night. I wound the biggest center-pull ball, like, ever. I also foraged some wool from some very unusual sheep.
Ravelry came out with some awesome spinning features and Etsy finally added instant downloads.

Finally... Last year I published a post on my knitting resolutions for the year. How did I do...?

Knit at least one FO from stash, per month: I knit 6 FOs from stash, out of 14 total FOs for the year. So, I didn't meet this goal. I wasn't expecting the massive mojo loss I've had lately which has led to fewer FOs overall. I also have 3 WIPs that I have started from stash yarn, which would bring me up to 9 projects if I finish them.
Stashdown: My original goal was to reduce my Ravelry stash to 134 stashed yarns - I met this goal! Just barely - I have 132 yarns in my Ravelry stash. I also participated in a stashdown this year, resolving to knit more than I bought - I met this goal too! By my calculations, I bought 6300 yards of yarn (whoa) and I knit 6400 yards. A net loss, but a rather small one :\ I'll be continuing the stashdown into this year.
Queue-down: I am an obsessive queue-er, so I wanted to reduce the number of patterns in my queue. My original goal was to knit 12 FOs, reducing the queue to 333 (see above, unfortunately that failed). However I also had a goal to reduce my queue by deleting patterns I no longer wanted to knit, or moving them to favs. I did meet that goal - my queue currently stands at 265 patterns, or 9 pages :)
Personal sock club (6 pairs): I finished two pairs of socks, cast on two more, and finished one pair that wasn't part of the sock club. Failed.
Hexipuffs: Big fail. I think I only knit about a dozen or two hexis this year. However, I am getting close to a finished quilt...

Hm, 2 out of 5 ain't bad, right? ;)

~Joyuna

One of a Kind

When you think about it, every handmade thing is unique. Totally unique, because no pair of hands works quite exactly the same way as any other person's.

This notion comes to the front of my mind when I work with my handspun. The object is totally unique, because no one would ever be able to reproduce this yarn in quite the same way. The slubs, the variations in twist, the quirks of the rolags from which I spun - they all create something totally new to the world. What some consider imperfection and fault, and others consider character - whichever it is, it's one of a kind.

This is a scarf I've just finished as a Christmas gift. It was a tight squeeze - I cast it off on the plane to America, which is where I am now to present said scarf to my sister Christmas Day.

The pattern, called Midwest Moonlight, is lovely - repetitive but interesting, textured and lacy, and attractive on both sides - and also forgiving of mistakes. Ideal for a scarf. It does knit up densely, so it eats yarn - I had to spin quite a bit more than I anticipated in order to make it a decent length. But it will be warm and sweet, and hopefully well-used this winter.

~Joyuna

A new wheel, a new friend

This blog has been quiet for a little while... Partly (among other things) because I've been too busy spinning to write anything. And the reason for that is that I am the proud new owner of a secondhand Haldane Orkney.

The Orkney is a compact little upright wheel made by the Haldane company in Scotland. Haldane don't make wheels anymore - they stopped in the late 1990s - but their wheels seem to have a good reputation.

I like that this wheel has some history behind it - I know that it's belonged to at least two other spinners before me. I can't find any good resources on dating the wheels, but it's possible this wheel is older than I am. Even so, it's in excellent nick - being supplied with 6 bobbins and all the necessary parts. The only thing I had to do to get the wheel spinning was find a bit of elastic for the scotch tension (even that wasn't strictly necessary, as I could have set it up double drive - but I am really enjoying spinning with scotch tension).
Besides the wheel itself, the seller also included a few bags of fiber and a set of hand cards in the sale. The hand cards are great - I'd only had a mini set of carders before, so it is a bit of a learning curve learning to use the full-size ones. But the rolags I make last for ages!

The two bags of fiber were a bag of raw mystery fleece, and some dyed merino top. I haven't gotten into the fleece yet, but I've gone through the top already between carding practice and wheel practice.
My first few bobbins of wheelspun weren't that great, but I'm getting better the more I use it. On the spindle I feel much more in control, while on the wheel I can make yarn, even if I don't know what kind of yarn it will turn out to be. But I'm sure that will come with time and practice...

~Joyuna