Gently, Gently

Made a good deal of sweater progress this week with the unspun, though as the title suggests, I’ve had to modify my knitting technique a bit to work with this new form of fiber.

Even holding it doubled, I have to be very careful to not create any tension on the working yarn or it will slowly thin and pull apart. But the result is very nice and soft, and I’m sure it will be very warm. I’ve been working in some of my own roving (white) between the fairly random color stripes of Nutiden, and will plan to knit the rest of the body and sleeves in the that once the color samples I have are exhausted.

I find that knitting with the white is somewhat easier, as the individual fibers are longer.

I’ve got about an inch or so of yoke depth to go before I separate the sleeves from the body. Mighty long rounds right now! It is nice to be able to slip it off the needles fairly easily for measuring and try ons with these cool little tube thingees I picked up earlier this year-

Regular spun yarns slide on them super easily, but the unspun is a little grabbier (especially the white, which has more lanolin in it). Still, it’s a lot faster than getting out a darning needle and running a lifeline. Highly recommend.

The other thing requiring special handling this week is the small amount of Felix fleece I saved before we laid him to rest in October. It is quite fine, and also not very long (maybe 1.5 inches).

While picking it open and doing some initial drum carding realized that I’d probably need to blend it with something else to make it easier to handle. And also that drum carding wasn’t really going to do it. The short, fine fibers really needed to be handled more gently to make sure they didn’t just curl up and go lumpy on me.

I’m finding that I get a much better result working with it on hand cards, and am mixing it with fleece from his buddy Daphne (about 30%) for strength and durability, as her fibers are nice and long.

So far so good. Now to see how it spins!