look what i made!!

I’m feeling very proud of myself as today I made a drop spindle and its so lovely to use. When i first learned to spin i made one out of dowel and CDs, and it was wobbly and i hated it…probably more because my shoulder was more painful then than it is now…but certainly the crapness of the spindle had a part in it. I did however enjoy the drafting and spinning itself, so i found a nice cheap Haldane wheel on ebay (which is beautiful, i shall have to remember to photo it for the blog one day), and never thought about spindles again. However I’m now getting to learn the limitations of my wheel. spinning laceweight is a pain, the highest ratio just isn’t fast enough, so i get bored, and get a sore leg. I’m planning to make a smaller whorl. but need to get a couple of bits to make it work (and to make it so i don’t have to change existing parts at all, its too beautiful to do that to), so I decided that in the meantime i’d try making a small and fast spindle. The lathe hasn’t been used for a while, so the longest part of the process was the taking it apart and cleaning and oiling it. After that, it was a pretty quick job…a chunky disc of delrin, an acrylic rod, some polishing and a hook, and it was ready, the hook needed bending a few times to get it to spin dead straight, and now it does, and i love it. I can’t see it replacing the wheel any time soon though, even though my shoulder is better, it does still get sore very quickly.

 The only downside of it is that it spins wonderfully once it touches the floor, due to my nice laminate flooring (which, incidentally, makes my wheel slide around, unless i use castor cups), so I can let it sit on the floor until i’m happy with the amount of twist. Great in theory, but the floor noise is apparently a signal to cats to come and play. I looked down a couple of times when i could feel the spindle pulling to one side, to see monkey with her paw hooked around the shaft. I’m hoping the novelty will wear off.

 I’m planning to make a couple of pretty hardwood ones next, I have some pink ivory and boxwood and something which looks like walnut but isn’t. Unfortunately they are square cross section stock, so I will need to borrow some tools to get them cut and rounded off before i can turn them, but it’ll be a quick job…I might take some to my parents’ tomorrow and borrow my dad’s tools.

And, without further ado, here’s my new spindle!

spindlesm.jpg

See those grey blobby bits in the pic? That’s dirt on my sensor 🙁 ..or maybe the lens, but i fear a sensor cleaning is in order. They don’t show up at f11 (unless you really look for them), which is what my yarn pics are normally taken at, but i upped it to f16 or so cos of all the white in the pic….I don’t know how to change the exposure compensation on my camera in manual mode…the button combination that does it in AP mode changes the aperture size in M mode, so rather than find the manual or look on the internet, I decided to cheat and close the aperture some. bad move…stupid grey blobs! I need to (1) learn how to use my camera properly (2) find (and remember to use!) my ND filters (3) turn the lights down (if they go down any further, i can’t remember) (4) move the lights back. Any combination of the above would be good, but I really should do them all so i can shoot at f8 or so for ‘normal’ pics, and have the opportunity to do arty wide open shallow depth of field type pics too when desired.

Dad’s the word – free sock knitting pattern

I finished the socks I was making for my dad, and had people ask what the pattern was, so I thought I would attempt to write it out. This is my first knitting pattern that’s anything more formal than scribble on the back of an envelope, so if there’s any errors, please let me know.

 I unfortunately gave the socks away before starting to write the pattern, foolishly forgetting to measure the tension, and i’ve lost the swatch I made beforehand, but i shall measure next time i see my dad. For now, if a plain 60 stitch sock fits, this sock will fit, the extra stitches make up for the pulling in of the cables. I know its written for a man, but my dad only has size UK6 feet, so it’ll probably fit women better than it does men.

 The yarn used was ONline linie 2 supersocke silk, in colour 0006, 2*50g

 I used the magic loop method, feel free to use whatever method you prefer. If using dpns, i’d recommend having the front/top stitches on one needle, and the back/bottom stitches divided between another two needles, then knit with the 4th needle. The charts for the front and back of the sock are separate.

Right. I think that’s all the preparationy stuff. Read through the pattern before you start, as there will be at least one instance of ‘at the same time’.

 Cast on 68 stitches. Divide as explained above, or however you want.

Work 16 rows in 1×1 rib

Charty links: chart 1 chart 2  chart 3 chart 4 chart 5 chart 6 key to charts  

Front of sock: work chart 1 3 times, then chart 2 3 times, then chart 1 once. AT THE SAME TIME:

Back of sock: work chart 3 7 times.

Then…

Front of sock: work chart 1 twice, then chart 5 once. AT THE SAME TIME:

Back of sock: work chart 4 once. Row 30 is the row you start to turn the heel on. Before knitting this row, rearrange the stitches as detailed below.

(The numbering of chart 5 starts at row 13, so you can make sure you’re on the same row on charts 4 and 5)

You will now have 26 stitches on your front needle, and 42 on your back needle. Move 4 stitches from each end of the back needle to the front needle, so you have 34 on each again.

 Heel: work a standard short row heel with wraps or double stitches or your own preferred method of avoiding holes over the 34 stitches on the back needle. For the top part of the heel carry on the rib pattern as in row 30 of chart 4, keeping the ribs going until you’re not working as far as those stitches anymore. For the second half of the heel, just knit. (I will add a line by line heel explanation later, but for now i imagine anyone knitting this knows how to turn a heel or they’ll be mightily lost with my pattern already).

After turning the heel, carry on with the pattern on the top of the foot:

Chart 1 3 times, then chart 2 3 times, then chart 1 3 times. Bottom of foot: knit all stitches. You might want to ktbl for the first and last stitch on the bottom needle on each row to give the edge more definition.

Now move to chart 6. knit row 1 of chart 6 as many times as you need until the sock is 7.5cm (need to check this number) shorter than desired final length, then work the rest of chart 6 on the top of the foot, continuing to knit on the back of the foot. AT THE SAME TIME, every time you make a decrease on the top of the foot, work an increase on the 2nd/2nd to last stitch on the bottom of the foot. you are only working the ribs into the middle at this point, NOT decreasing the size of the sock.

Now you can start to decrease for the toe. All worked in knit stitch.

work a decrease round: k1, ssk, knit to 3 stitches from the end, k2tog, k1. repeat on second needle.

work 3 rounds, work a decrease round

[work 2 rounds, work a decrease round] twice

[work 1 round, work a decrease round] four times

[work a decrease round] six times

12 stitches remain. Graft these using kitchener stitch, or thread the yarn back through them and tighten it, however you prefer to finish your toes.

 And that concludes my first ever knitting pattern. Please please please let me know if there’s any errors or ambiguities.


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yarn pr0n and computer hate

So I got a ravelry account and nik lent me his pop up light tent. Clearly yarn pr0n was going to ensue. Here’s a few pics, there’s tons more in my ravelry stash…and i’ve only photographed a very small proportion of my old crappy acrylic yarn so far…though most of my nice squishy wooly yarn has been done. I’m loving the light tent, I’ve got one bare light set up at the back left, and one with a softbox just in front to the right. I should probably take a photo of my setup and write down the settings so i can recreate it after it’s been packed up, cos i’m liking the results.

The red yarn at the top left is my latest handspun…laceweight, 550m+ for 50g, and its 100% merino, super soft and lovely. No idea what i’m going to do with it, but it’s been added to the collection and will be regularly squished.


Generated by Flickr Album Maker (with a few tweaks from me)

My computer had been getting increasingly crashy recently, so i finally decided to try and fix it, and realised one of my ram modules was broken. So I’ve been running on 512mb, which is ‘okay’ for general browsing and stuff, but just kills the machine when using photoshop. I ran round the house looking in my other machine, and in the old machine dad gave me, and in my stash of random computer bits, but couldn’t find any ddr ram. Then i had a brainwave and stole some out of the machine nik left here. No doubt i will be in trouble when he finds out, but i figured it’ll get more use in this one, seeing as the other only gets used at meets…and it will help me keep my sanity. Oh, and in one of my diagnostic messing around with ram moments, i was trying to put some back in, and it wasn’t aligned properly and my finger slipped and i managed to gouge a hole in my fingertip. Given how very un-sharp ram is, i was pretty impressed at the damage caused. It’s been highly annoying when spinning, as the fine fibres want to catch on the healing wound and mess up my nice smooth yarn.

I added a progress bar thingy over there ->> and it worked first time, so that made me happy. Here’s the socks i’m working on for dad:
dad socks
I’m using Online supersocke I think it’s called…its merino/silk/nylon. Beautifully soft, but horrible and splitty to knit with, and certainly not designed for cables, I did the first couple of cable rounds without a cable needle, but it was too hard, so i’ve reverted to using one. If I’d have had any other sock yarn suitable for man socks, i’d have switched and used this for something plainer, but all my other sock yarns are distinctly girly…I was pushing it enough making socks with cables, trying to use a bright coloured wool would have been too much I think.

I’ve got balls!!!

Today was a very knitty day indeed. I spent this afternoon at my parents’ house with my mum and 3 other knitters at our first ever knitting group meeting. I worked on my sock and taught mum how to turn a heel, and we talked about sheep and pigs and all sorts of things. Then I made a yarn swift out of meccano.

ys1.jpg

I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated with the time it takes to wind balls from skeins. I got a ball winder with my spinning wheel, though it didnt have a bobbin with it…so i discovered a place that sold just the bobbins on ebay, and that made my ball-winding life considerably easier. Unfortunately it either needs two people to do, one of whom gets achy arms, or I need to contort myself into strange positions with the skein wrapped around my knees or neck or something. After stumbling across a blog showing a homemade swift made out of some kids building toy that i’ve never heard of (i’ll add a link to it if i find it again), I realised i could easily make one from meccano…which i knew dad has a case of in the cupboard. It only took about 10 minutes to assemble, and it works wonderfully. So I’ve just spent half an hour or so winding some of my stash into balls.

 yarnballs.jpg

 left to right, top to bottom: Angels and Elehants Sock yarn, shetland wool, colourways candyfloss (1 ball), holly berry (2 balls). Handspun from rovings: red and green laceweight, blue and grey laceweight, pink and purple DK (two balls). Handspun from norfolk horn fleece, green DK, pinky aran, and pink chunky.

And as if that wasn’t exciting enough, I finished the socks for my brother. I found this awesomely orange corriedale roving in my LYS, and decided i would spin it and make some socks for him, as orange is his favourite colour. It was the first time i’d spun anything finer than DK, but it turned out pretty even, and the socks feel nice and soft…though I was cursing his size 9 feet by the end, i’ve never made socks any bigger than a 6 before, and this seemed to take aaaages. timsocks.jpg

Oh, and here’s a couple of other (clicky) pics of the swift (one with monkey’s head in, as she’s found the whole process fascinating). If anyone reading wants any more info as to how it’s made, just give me a shout, though really it’s pretty self explanatory.
yscloseup.jpgysmonkey.jpg

more front garden yarn photographs

appleyarnpost.jpg Here’s my latest creation. The green is merino from the alpaca spinner selection pack mentioned below, I saw it and thought of apples. Of course the best apples are red AND green, so I dug out a chunk of red I’d dyed in the past and had left over from whatever I needed it for. To make the final yarn more interesting I added small amounts of oatmeal and brown BFL, and white corriedale. Like the last yarn it’s a 2-ply, as close to laceweight as I can get. Length is about 330m, weight somewhere shy of 50g (I don’t have digital scales, so accurate weighing is done when i visit my parents). It’s beautifully soft, and I kinda like it, which is a surprise as I dont really like green.

Here’s a pic of the fibres I started with:
appleyarnfibres.jpg

And here’s a closeup of the finished product (click to enlarge)
applesyarnsmall.jpg

i LOVE this yarn

bluegrey2.jpg love LOVE LOVE it. It is the grey shetland, plied with a blue (merino) and white (corriedale) single, so it will knit up a little bit stripey. Its awesomely soft, and given my relative inexperience with spinning, i am very happy with how fine and even it is…..53g and 370m. I have been squshing it and rubbing it on my cheek and hugging it LOTS.

bluegreysmall.jpg
[click to enlarge]

mmmm, fibres

I recently won an ebay auction for a package of various fibres from the alpaca spinner, consisting of Grey shetland, corriedale, swaledale, oatmeal and brown BFL, and coloured merino rovings, and a big bag of baby alpaca fleece. They are all soooo soft and i love them all. So I decided to try and spin a laceweight yarn…you can see the first single here, in the grey shetland, with a strand of normal DK weight yarn hung over the bobbin for scale purposes. There’s a few fluffy bits on the yarn, and the odd bit that is too thick, but in general i’m pretty happy with it….I’m not sure what i am going to ply with it though, i’m thinking maybe a white/blue strand of merino, to ensure it’s just as soft, and so it knits up stripey.

bobbin.jpg

felting – first attempt

Yesterday i found this book for £3 in a shop in cambridge, i’ve been wanting to make felt for a while, so it was too good a deal to pass up. After reading it, and one failed attempt (well, not exactly failed…i now have a hat with a hole in), I managed to make this bag, from merino with balwen trim. It looks a lot nicer in real life than in pics…photographing white things is so difficult, i shall attempt to do it properly with my real camera and studio lighting at some point, but for now, the dodgy point and shoot pic at least gives you an idea. Once it’s dry i shall line it, and then decide what to do about a fastening and a handle. feltbag.jpg

scarf update

lacescarf2.jpg I’ve been knitting away at my new lace scarf, only allowing myself to knit 10 rows at a time, and fastidiously using markers and counting out loud, so i’ve only had to unpick 20 stitches so far…and the hard bit is done for this end, now it’s on to the relatively easy straight part. The pic is rather dodgy due to silk being very shiny, and the light in here being terrible…and of course it’ll look much nicer when blocked, but i am happy with progress so far.