Sometimes you need a project you can just start NOW.
Sometimes you need a super simple straightforward, easy, non-thinking project.
No planning needed. No designing required. No counting. No math.
Just starting and making.
Often, starting a project with no planning is a recipe for disaster.
It’s generally how you get ill-fitting sweaters, cockeyed shelving units, uneatable meals. Planning is super important for creating a usable finished object – it’s why swatching is important, and so is math.
However, sometimes you need a project you can just start now, without going through the thinking, or the planning, or the calculating.
For me, spinning fills that need.
I don’t often spin yarn with a knitting project in mind.
My handspun & hand knit sweater being the exception.
I don’t often spin complicated yarns.
No art yarns, no intricately planned color sequences, or time consuming fiber prep – they’re not my thing.
I like my spinning projects pretty damn straightforward.
I start a spinning project by going into my fiber stash, pulling out a braid of roving, splitting it in half, and starting to spin. Sometimes I’ll do some more drafting or prep – especially if it’s a multi color roving – but not often.
There are definitely technical spinners out there – I’m not one of them.
For me, spinning is about being a conduit.
Take fiber. Add twist. Make yarn.
How much twist? As much twist as the fiber wants.
What ratio? The ratio that feels right.
How many treadles per minute? As many treadles as your feet want.
How many plies? What direction of twist? What fiber prep? What color sequence? How long? How often? How consistent? etc. etc.
What feels right? What feels right?
No over thinking. No over planning. Just spinning.
(the red yarn on the left, is a red & purple 3ply handspun, also spun by me without much planning)
two sleeves, some yarn, new jewelry, and a shawl
Each Wednesday, I post little snippets about the projects I’m working on.
I spent most of the weekend working on projects that were very much not my secret project – yay! – and that ended up being quite productive.
Sleeves!!! My purple sweater has two of them. Now I just need to figure out the neckline situation, and I’ll have another sweater.
I finished a spinning & plying a skein of handspun yarn that has been sitting on my desk for months now – so finishing this feels amazing.
Back at VK Live in January, I learned how to bead crochet bracelets, but hadn’t learn how to close them. This weekend I learned, and how I have a pile of new jewelry! What’s not to love about that?
And finally, I took photos for a new shawl pattern. (Was the last shawl I finished, really Rosmerta?)
The design is a circular shawl, with a pretty complex, geometric, lace pattern – though I think my favorite part is probably the sun at the center.
I’m at the final stages of pattern editing, I think it came out beautifully, and I couldn’t wait to share some of the photos – so these are some of the outtakes that probably won’t find their way into the final pattern.
The yarn is Toil & Trouble’s merino/silk lace weight, two strands of yarn held together throughout the shawl, and knit on US #5 (3.75mm) needles. The colors are “Smoke Signals” (the light grey) and “Apollo” (the beautiful yellow/orange.)
PS! if you’re in the Boston area, Ana (the proprietress of Toil & Trouble yarns) just opened a new yarn shop in Salem – called Circle of Stitches. The grand opening is this weekend – March 7th, so stop by, say “hi,” and squish some yarn. Here’s the link to their website with the shop hours & address.
A handspun, handknit sweater
I love spinning, and took up spinning pretty quickly after I started knitting. This is the first time I’ve ever spun enough yarn for a sweater though.
And while, I probably won’t turn into a knitter who knits exclusively with handspun yarn, going from fiber -> yarn -> sweater was pretty damn amazing.
This is a sweater knit entirely out of handspun yarn. Yesterday I wrote about the process of spinning the yarn, now details about the sweater itself.
MATERIALS:
Yarn
– 250 yards (228.5 m) – 2 oz (56.5 g) – handspun heavy lace weight grey BFL
– 250 yards (228.5 m) – 3 oz (85 g) – handspun heavy lace weight alpaca
– 500 yards (457 m) – 9 oz (255 g) – handspun worsted weight alpaca
All the yarn are super basic two ply yarns – the lace weights are much more even than the worsted weight, mostly because I’m more comfortable spinning lace weights, but also because the worsted weight was my first experience spinning on a Hansen miniSpinner (it was amazing).
Needles
– US #6s (4.00 mm) circular needles for the lace weight
– US #10s (6.00 mm) circular needles for the worsted weight
PATTERN:
A basic top down raglan pullover, with short row shaping at the back of the neck, to help keep the neckline from pulling up. I striped the two lace weight for the yoke, the bottom half of the sleeves, and a bit around the bottom hem. Then I used the worsted for the main body, and the sleeves.
I wanted a pattern that was simple enough to let the yarn shine, and was flexible enough that if I started running out of yarn I had options.
WHAT WORKED WELL:
I just had enough yarn, and I loved knitting an entire sweater out of handspun yarn, though I can’t say it’s something I’d do all the time. Grace does it a lot – and I don’t know how she does it.
This is the first sweater I’ve finished that includes short row shaping for the back of the neck, and I have to say I really like it – I’m playing around with it in the purple yoked sweater I’m currently working on, and it’s probably a feature I’ll be adding it to most of my future sweaters.
WHAT I’D DO DIFFERENTLY:
I’m not sure I’d do anything differently per say, but this is the third top down raglan sweater I’ve finished and I don’t love all of the excess material it produces at the underarm. That material under the yarn ends up bunching weirdly – which I’m not a fan of.
So, I think I’ll lay off the raglan shaping for awhile and explore other types of sweater yoke shaping. I really, really love yoked sweaters (like my boring black sweater & handknit sweater dress), and I want to try some more sweaters with set in sleeves (the Moonstruck Cardigan had sewn in set-in sleeves, and my Versio sweater had seamless set-in sleeves). I’m interested in experimenting some more with seamless set in sleeves – Andi Satterlund’s guide to seamless set-in sleeve sweaters looks interesting.
