Fiber Musings

Specs:
Yarn: 3-ply handspun; Superwash Merino from Crown Mountain Farm in “Say A Little Prayer” colorway (retired colorway).
Needles: US Size 0 (2.00 mm)
Gauge: 7.5 spi
Pattern: My generic toe up socks, with 2×2 ribbing on top and up the leg; 64 sts.

Why Bobby Socks? I intend to wear these with the cuff rolled down. I’m showing it this way because the socks seem so oddly formed — very skinny and long. As I was knitting it, I kept thinking, “There is no way that this will fit. The foot is too long!”, even though I fitted the sock as I went to determine the location of the heel. That’s what 2×2 ribbing does. It pulls it up nice and snug.

This is a good thing to remember if you are making socks for someone as a gift. The 2×2 rib is very forgiving.

I’m now happy with the heel. I know why it does what it does on the k2tog side. My forward yarn-over is much looser than my backwards yarn-over, and the k2tog is loosey goosey, causing the ugliness. I fixed this by slipping the yarn-over stitch while maintaining the twist in the stitch. The twist tightens everything up quite nicely. Yes, the 2 sides do not match, but that’s only under close scrutiny. No one will be looking at my foot that closely, I assure you. If they do, they might get a swift kick in the nose.

As I was knitting the leg on the second sock, I realized that this is a perfect set up for the blueberry waffle pattern. (2 rows of 2×2 ribbing, followed by 2 rows plain stockinette.) I will have to try this next time, since I’ve never made the blueberry waffle socks before. I would most likely only do this on the leg portion of the sock, since I don’t really like any type of patterning on top of my foot. Even ribbing bothers me. I’m a princess when it comes to my socks.

I still have close to a pound of this colorway, spun in various weights: 2 ply DK, and 3 ply fingering. The 3 ply from the 8 oz. that I originally bought for socks (this pair and the tennis socks), and the remainder of the 1.5 pounds I spun for the baby blanket. While I love the spring green, I am getting a bit weary of all it. 3 projects out of the same yarn/color is a bit over the top. I can’t bear to think about a 4th or a 5th. I think I will be sending the remainder of this yarn to Kim, who is expecting a baby this summer. Since the baby room is Jungle themed, perhaps she can do something with the green. (Kim, are you interested?)

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I had a lovely dinner and read a book by the light of candles and oil lamps at my house during Earth Hour 2008. How about you?

Actually, I had 2 lovely evenings in a row by candle light. A transformer blew near the club on Friday night, just as dinner was winding down. I spent the rest of the evening talking with friends by candle light. It was lovely.

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I stayed up past 1 AM last night finishing warping my loom. I did a shortcut on the warp, and it definitely did not wind on like butter, as it should have. It wasn’t horrible, but I now know not to take that particular short cut!

Once complete, I wove a couple of shots of plain tabby to check my warp.

See that bit of ugliness on the left? Despite triple and quadruple checking my warp, I still made that stupid mistake. I put 1 thread through one heddle, and 3 in the next, instead of 2 each. (This had nothing to do with my shortcut, by the way.) While this will even out in the wash once it is off the loom, it still bothers me.

After a good night’s sleep, I decided to unweave and fix the warp. The good news is that the error was in the reeds only, so it was easy to unweave, and fix the problem from the front of the loom.

The fix is on the right. It makes me much happier. Onward to the tie ups.

Tech Specs: 8/2 cotton, alternating green and white; 20 epi on 10 dent reed.

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But I am getting some things finished.

A pair of ankle socks, using the remaining yarn from this pair of socks. Same generic sock recipe, but I added 3×1 rib to shake things up a bit. I knitted the back of the sock in plain stockinette stitch for about 3/4″ after turning the heel before changing it to 3×1 rib as well. I topped it off with 3/4″ of 1×1 rib at the top.

As it turns out, I could have made these socks a wee bit longer because I still have yarn left over. So, 5 ounces of fiber is enough for 2 full pairs of socks for me. The advantages of having small feet.

I made the second heel a bit different from the first. I knitted the first stitch of each short row. I didn’t like this. Also, on the k2tog on the nibble back, I slipped both stitches knit-wise, including the yarn over. This created a twisted stitch, but it tightened it up so that it is much neater.

I’m already on the second sock of the next pair, continuing on the heel experimentations. I’m still on course for 2 pairs per month!

I haven’t abandoned everything in favor of the sock needles.

These are 3 ply worsted weight yarn from Rovings. The color way is called “One of a Kind”. As you can see, there were 2 distinct colors in this batch, heathered green and purple. I separated them. There is 1 lb 6.5 oz of heathered green, and 4.75 oz of purple. I finished these a few weeks ago, but just gotten around to the photo shoot. I bought this at SOAR in Tahoe (2006).

As if there isn’t enough fiber projects to distract me, a very heavy box arrived from Canada, just begging for me to open it up and start playing. Yup. My antique Circular Sock Machine has arrived (Legare 400). I’m being good. I’m holding off until I finish cleaning out the office.

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On the first day of class, I wove this…

Warp: alternating kid mohair/silk boucle and mohair
Weft: rambouillet
Sett: 6 epi
Warp width: 10″
Off the loom: 72″ long (sans fringe), 9″ wide
After wet finishing: 68″ long, 7″ wide

I spent the rest of the session working on my gamp, also known as a sampler.

This is 8/2 cotton. I didn’t calculate my sett (12 epi) correctly, and this is more of a weft faced fabric instead of balanced weave. It was hard to get a good beat on it where the pattern shows clearly, so I just started playing around with my treadling. I particularly like the columns in the bottom left photo. I played with different versions. I think there is promise there. I wrapped it up with just plain tabby. After washing, I might be able to sew up a couple of squares to go under vases and such.

I have already started warping on another gamp with 20 epi.

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