Handspun Jumper #5: Spinning Done, Knitting Begins.

I spun the fleece discussed in Handspun Jumper Part 2- Chocolate Alpaca Fleece , looked at it with the supplementary yarn prepared in Handspun Jumper Part 3 – Supplementary Yarn, decided that I definitely wouldn’t use the fluffy teal stuff (it’s not worsted spun and is already felting a bit) and probably wouldn’t use the dark multicoloured skein either. So I pulled another 200g out of the fleece bag and spun that too, finishing up in late September. Then I worked on some other stuff, some of which you have seen here.

Now I have 573g or about 1335m of chocolate brown alpaca yarn, handspun by me. It’s even fairly even :-). This should be plenty for the planned garment.

Here it is with the other yarn, of which I will probably only use the blue this time. The multicoloured skein looks wonderful with the brown, but isn’t gelling in my head for this project. Maybe another thing will get knitted later.

Knitting has begun! and it seems that by “Jumper” I really mean “Cardigan”. I’ve landed on “Upstairs” by Melissa Alexander-Loomis from Skeinanigans as the closest pattern to the garment i had in my head and a good gauge for the weight of this yarn. I will need to eliminate the bobbles from the back at least because they would tangle my long hair. I might leave them out all together. That would lose some character but the pale flecks in the blue will deliver their own.

I am grateful for Youtube how-to videos. I’ve already needed to look up how to do a German twisted cast on, which took quite some time to get my head around. Also “sl1wyif” which really is as simple as it sounds, but it was nice to have the confirmation. Plus I was confused by short row shaping being done after the yoke, but that appears to be normal, so I can proceed with confidence when I get to that part of the pattern.

It’s taken much of the weekend to get my head around the pattern, make size decisions (because of course my measurements don’t match a single size well), make myself count strands of one of the skeins so I could get a length estimate, learn the cast on….. Now for rather a lot more knitting.

Bonus yarn inspired skein winder

My second hand Susie-pro wheel came with a bunch of wool and alpaca top used as packing. It also came with lots of bobbins, some of which already had yarn on. The smaller ones held singles. Those huge bobbins had plied yarn (I have since learned that these are sold as plying bobbins). There was some evidence of moth damage so all this largesse was quickly bagged up with anti-moth papers and has been sitting for a few months. I wanted to get the yarn skeined off to both have the bobbins free and allow everything to be cleaned properly.

All this to skein off, and I knew how tiring it is to deal with just one or two full smaller bobbins using a niddy-noddy. So I looked about for skein winder options. The one that is sold to go on the Susie-pro looked pretty simple. I thought I could maybe manage to make my own version. So I did.

It looks pretty much the same, but the attachment method is a little different. Mine just has the right sized nut set into the middle.

It attaches to the wheel easily and spins nicely. It can be pedal driven by itself but the band slips if there is back pressure, such as when drawing from a bobbin. Oh well. It works just fine wound by hand and that is still much easier and quicker than the niddy noddy. I was well pleased. There was about 400g of the fawn, 200g on the biggest bobbin.

I plied the yellow and white singles together, then the white with itself after the yellow ran out.

All that fawn seemed to be the same stuff. So I plied the single with itself, trying to match the loose nature of the pre-plied stuff.  Both the yellow and the fawn had breaks in the fibre. I’m assuming moth attack. I ditched the worst sections but there are still a few knots in the finished yarn. Here is some of it freshly skeined. So neat but it didn’t stay that way!

It felted rather a lot when washed. Grr. I had thought it might be alpaca, but this easy of felting suggests sheep wool I think? Here is the whole lot washed and dried. This is after I spent a fair bit of time pulling the damp strands apart as best I could. Oh well, it was bonus yarn and the bobbins are now empty and clean.

Then I had a thought. If that fawn stuff felts so easily, maybe it would be good to make historical felted hats from? In it’s current state, the length to weight ratio even suggests it might knit up as worsted, which would be brilliant as all the patterns I have for such hats call for that kind of yarn. Something to investigate later when there is room in the project schedule.

Cashmere Eggs

A bunch of years ago, I brought home a pure cashmere cardigan in palest pink that I had found in a charity shop. I loved it. So, so soft, and it has pockets! It had drifted into too small territory so I stopped wearing it. I pulled it out in a recent wardrobe cull and found it was peppered with moth holes. No! The cupboard got a good clean and some moth papers. The cardigan got a wash and about half a day’s work.

I darned 11 small holes or weak spots and patched two larger holes. I might not have bothered, but… pure cashmere! and…. pockets!

Aside from the moth holes, it was a bit yellowed in places. Too subtle to catch well in photos, but enough to make it dingy.

So I applied beads and elastic bands:

and popped it in a yellow dye bath. Here are close ups of the most obvious mended section before and after dyeing. The mending was much more invisible before. The different materials took up the dye at different rates. Boo.

Still, the overall effect is nice I think. I’d so wear it if it was a bit larger. So I need to find it a home. Egg yolk yellow, decorated with fried egg donuts. Or possibly inverse cheezels.

and it IS a Pretty Thing

I had quite a bit of the fawn alpaca yarn left. About 30g. A friend shared an amusing post from Yarn Harlot about the extended process of getting her “Pretty Thing” cowl pattern up on Ravelry. I agreed that it looked like a jolly pretty thing. She said hers weighs only 20g, but in cashmere. So I decided to have a go, and I did had enough! Even with the extra pattern repeat that I felt was necessary.

It was a fun knit, though a bit repetitive in the middle section. Here it is straight off the needles:

and via the magic of blocking…. this is a cardboard beer carton with a towel pinned and pegged around it. Worked a treat for such a little item.

it then looks like this:

I added an extra pattern repeat. I have a bigger head, am a tightish knitter and my handspun yarn was a bit less than the 4ply called for by the pattern.  Very glad I did. It does fit over my head (hurrah) but is quite tight around my neck. That might ease a bit on wearing. I’m a little annoyed that the top tends to fold over like so:

If I arrange it carefully, it will sit as it is supposed to. I admit that my hair isn’t help it sit properly. It does look rather better when worn with a crew neck top too. It might not get worn properly until next winter, the weather has taken a warm turn.

Skirt to Dress Remodel

On this 15 degree day (celcius of course) I’ve been working on a summer dress while wearing several layers of jumpers.

Nearly six years ago I made a simple half circle wrap skirt from a lovely piece of herringbone striped linen. It worked just fine for a few years, then I gained enough weight that there wasn’t enough wrap available for decency. So this has been hanging in the back of the wardrobe unworn.

It turned up while I was considering a different garment to remodel. I remembered I had some of the fabric left and suddenly thought that it would work well as a buttoned pinafore. The straight edges were even already constructed in a way that would function as button bands. So I cut the waistband off and cut out a bodice, basically the one from  Shoe strings but with wider straps and centre front extensions to form the closure.

The new fabric currently contrasts noticeably with the worn. I don’t think that looks too bad though and hopefully the difference will lessen with time and washings.

I cut the bodice to match the different stripe orientation front and back.

For added figure shaping, I’ve used my button and loop to form a second dart/fold thing again.

Here she is on. I think I like it but proper wearing will have to wait for warmer weather.

Second life for gauzy linen

Six years ago, I pounced on some pale pink linen mixed up in a bin of boring cotton drill and all priced at $3/m. I stripped out the colour with Runaway and made up a simple long nightgown, which got slightly more interesting after i accidentally made the neck hole way too big.

 

This became my favourite trans-seasonal nightgown and it was nicer and nicer to wear as the years went on and it became more and more gauzy. The air just moved straight through it. Last week it came out of the cupboard again as the weather warmed, but it suddenly announced it was done and shredded all across the back and elbows. I didn’t want to completely give up on that lovely fabric though, so I cut a very simple T shaped top from the hem section. Upside down so the least worn fabric is at the shoulders.

I also have some new cleaning rags and reclaimed buttons. I even recycled the label on the new top.

See how gauzy it is. I mean to wear it under pinafore frocks, so decency is not an issue. It will be way cooler to wear than a regular knit t-shirt. I may well make some more. I think I will also see if there is enough of the original fabric left to remake the gown.

 

Tweedy Drum Carder Fun

While I had access to my friend’s drum carder, I also worked up all the remaining combing waste from the four fine fleece fragments. Black, grey, caramel and a tiny bit of the fawn. The fluffier the fleece, the harder it seems to be to get good photos. The poor camera doesn’t know where to focus.

It was a bit challenging to spin with the short fibre lengths and all the lumpy noils. I had to go rather more slowly than usual with quite a bit of stopping to stretch out stuck bits, pull out VM or reject the most intractable lumps. That seems to have helped me convince my feet that they can pedal at variable speed though, rather than going hell for leather all the time. An unexpected bonus.

Here is the very beginning of the spin. I was trying to put a bit of extra spin in to hold the shorter fibres.

and here is the finished product. First pic is straight off the wheel, second is after washing and drying. There is 58g here.

I’m really pleased with it. I had been concerned that we had blended the colours too much in the carding, but it has actually come out pretty much how I imagined, and almost none of the fleece has gone to waste. I still need to find things to knit out of this and the other remaining bits of yarn though.