Drum Carder Initiation

I’m not sure how much processing of fleece will be in my future. I rather imagine I will mostly spin commercially prepared fibre.  So I’m milking the experience options from the alpaca goodness project. I retained all the combing waste. The pale fawn I had already processed with hand carders. A lovely friend offered her drum carder, so I’ve put the combing waste from the caramel alpaca through that. Oh my, so much easier and quicker than hand carding! The kit is also a lot more expensive of course.

This is a picture of a similar drum carder from the Ashford website. Silly me didn’t take any process pics.

and this is the batt of fluff that we produced from about 30g of combing waste.

I chose to get as worsted an effect as I could, by tearing off strips and spinning from one end.

It was a different spinning experience with fluffy short fibres and lumpy noils all through. I got yarn though. Not the lovely smooth yarn that combing produces, but yarn with character. Actually, it doesn’t look as lumpy as I felt it would. I’m pretty pleased. This is straight off the niddy noddy. I’ve since washed it and drying is slowly happening as I type this.

More Hat Rescue

It’s silly having hats in the hat box that one won’t wear. Having started by reworking the most precious one, I decided I’d continue and do a couple more.

This black on black stealth striped beret was one of my early adult* knits, maybe 20years ago.  Mohair and 8ply black “wool” with a cute beaded tassel.

It got worn occasionally but not for long. It fit well but the band was too scratchy to tolerate. Foolish me edged it with mohair which I’ve since conclude I shan’t use for not being able to stand the itchy.

So I carefully unpicked the band. Not easy! Blackity black on black. It was really hard to tell where to pull and cut. Then knitted a new band out of the delightfully soft black alpaca that I hand spun a few months ago. So much better.

Incidentally, I weighed the remaining yarn between each of the last few rows. I conclude that the cast off row (using a needle 0.5mm larger than the band) takes 25-30% more yarn than a simple rib row. Something I’ve been curious about for a while, and useful to know when playing yarn chicken.

Then there is this silly confection of a hat that I knitted a couple of years ago out of a bunch of colours of nice soft merino 4ply. However, that twisted rib band turned out to be too tight to tolerate.

So I chopped it off and replaced it with a plain rib band in the darker greener yarn on slightly larger needles, with the cast off in the blue.

It fits better now and I prefer the colour balance too. Can you see the sneaky line of tiny winky sequins that I added? For fun and to fill out the blank part of that stripe. I’d always wished I’d done another row of the purl spots. Fixed!

There is one more underperforming hat to deal with. That might end up being given away and replaced with a full re-knit. It’s fuzzy yarn and that doesn’t unravel well, and to fix it I’d have to reknit most of it like the handspun one.

*as opposed to items knitted as a child. Not anything risqué :-).

 

Handspun Hat Rescue

The first hat I made myself out of my own handspun wasn’t being worn. It was too tall, too small around, would pull itself off my head all by itself. Clever hat. Too clever.  I didn’t want to abandon it though. It’s made from my early drop spindle spun yarn and deserves to be a wearable thing.

So I cut off the band and pulled it back to the top circle. Washed the poodle yarn, dried it and re-knitted on larger needles.

The band yarn was always too thin. Nice soft merino for comfiness on the forehead but too fine. So I spun up some better stuff from the same indigo dyed fleece on the wheel, though I had to comb the accidentally felted sliver first. I spun some plain red too, but didn’t end up using that.

It changed shape significantly. Here is the original:

and this is the new version. Wider, shorter and with a plain stocking stitch finish.

The original was knitted on 3mm needles. I hadn’t wet finished the yarn though and the hat shrank on washing. When I picked up the stitches at the edge of the circle, I did one row at 2.75mm, then 4 rows on 3mm, then changed to 3.5mm for the rest of the multicoloured drop spindle spun yarn. I changed down to 3mm for the bulk of the band, then 2.75mm for the last row, but 3.5mm for the cast off. Easy to switch about like that when you have a set of interchangeable circular needles sitting next to you.

It fits so much better now. Hurrah.

 

(not so) Little Black Dress

I’ve been rehearsing for a choral performance for the last few months. Concert dress was confirmed with only about 10 days to go. All black. Which is what I suspected, and I had a dress in mind that I wanted to add to my wardrobe anyway, but I didn’t want to commit to the project until I had confirmation. I might have needed to make something different!

It was a shortish timeline, further tightened by my plans to be away from home for a few days in there too. All good. It only took a few days but I didn’t take any progress shots, except the neat little pile of pieces ready to assemble.

The dress fabric is black wool suiting in a fine herringbone twill with a little bit of elastane. I’d bought it to make trousers, but it makes a fine dress. I used the whole 2.5m piece with only a few tiny scraps left over. The bodice is lined with nice black linen, cut from scraps given to me by a friend.

Here it is, photo taken after it’s first outing so it has some wearing creases. Those pockets were stuffed with hankies, cough lollies and a tiny water bottle.

It started with the pattern used for the turquoise frock written up in Back on the dressmaking horse but has a bunch of changes.
-Princess seamed bodice, taken in both under the bust and at the side seams yet it’s still roomy. The neckline is cut a bit lower too and I’ve improved the line of the front armhole.
-The skirt is cut as four trapezoids, then waist and hem curved to smooth. So it’s flared as well as gathered. Also longer of course.
-The gathering doesn’t go all the way around. A flat fronted skirt is often more flattering.
-It has an invisible zipper in the side seam instead of buttons. Thank you Kenneth D. King for instructions that helped me manage a better set of this than I’ve managed previously. This video
-The hem is overlocked, pressed up and stitched with a twin needle rather than the  bound red hem of the turquoise.

So, sort of almost the same frock, but yet not.

The skirt has a lovely heavy drape and fluidity from a combination of fabric and flared cut. Hard to show in a still picture. It feels really nice while walking.

I also made a “dress” for my score. Well we needed a black cover, and fabric was my easiest and cheapest choice.

Sadly, on the night my voice was buried in a cold, so I only got to sing maybe half my notes, and those not well. The dress was lovely to wear though.