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Ho Ho Hosiery for the Holidays

denisemor 1 December 17, 2017

Argyle socks are coming along!

I do so love the tidy classic pattern-

It’s a bit like creating order out of chaos, with all the tangled working strands hanging off the back.

I am continuing to work only on the front, and my right-handed knitting is getting better I think.
The only technical issue I’m coming across is that my white diagonal line stitches are getting mounted wrong and having to untwist them when I come back across them on the next row. I think it’s only happening when the diagonal is moving opposite direction of the row I’m working. (?)

I suppose I could make the pattern a little simpler by going back in and doing the white lines in duplicate stitch after the fact, but I think they look better when they are knitted in and lay flatter in the pattern.

And so I’ll be working on these for a bit. Perhaps this fussy knitting will help to distract me from the humiliating loss the Seahawks just suffered at the hands of the Rams.

Or maybe not. Ugh.

Cookies Reflecting Life

denisemor 2 December 10, 2017

Springerle-

And our December pastoral scene-

It’s actually kind of amazing that there is still green out there. Today was beautiful, almost 50 degrees. Was nice to get to spend a little time out in the sunshine with the sheeps.

The reason that you don’t see Esther above is that she ran up so fast I couldn’t get her in the photo! Pretty sure she thought I had alfalfa pellets 🙂 I’ll make sure to catch her next time.

In knitting news, I am once again feeling a strong urge to argyle.
I remember that it was fussy and slow-going,,, but I am drawn to it like a moth to flame.

This time out, I am going to do something a little different.
My plan is to knit the argyle part back and forth left to right in my regular left-handed style, and back across the front right to left like a right-hander (continental, I think).

I’ve been practicing my right-handed knitting, and think I can make a go of it. I think that it will be nice to be able to work only on the right side. Hope to get started this week!

Back to the Back to Back!

denisemor 1 December 3, 2017

You might remember that about a year or so ago I was pretty excited about something I’d seen on Slow TV: National Knitting Night.

Well, imagine my surprise and glee to see a little writeup of the Back to Back challenge in the newsletter of my local spinning guild!

Apparently the Back to Back Challenge has captured the imagination of another fleece-loving person in my local area!

So of course I immediately reached out over Ravelry to express my interest 🙂

And Yvonne was kind enough to send me a sample of raw local Romney to work up into a sample.

The rules: no carders or combs. No washing. No electric spinners.

The specs: 2 ply yarn, approximately sport weight.
Sample to be knit up on size 3 needles for 1×1 rib, size 6 for stockinette.

Didn’t get a picture of the fleece, because I launched right into spinning it up.

But here is my plied yarn

It’s a really different feeling, spinning in the grease. I found that I got the best results from working from the side of the locks.
The more open locks were easier to manage. the tighter ones required a bit of manual picking to permit even drafting.

and here is my knitted sample.

I got a gauge of about 5.25 stitches/inch, which is pretty darn close to the standard 5.5 generally associated with DK weight.
It’s bias-ing pretty good, and I’m sure that is because I usually add quite a bit of ply twist to my yarns, and since it hasn’t been washed, the wool hasn’t yet relaxed into it’s newly twisty shape.

Knitting in the grease is really interesting. Lots more resistance than regular knitting, due to all the lanolin and stuff.
Might be a little smoother in a slightly warmer room? Or maybe it would be messier the more melty the lanolin gets….

Anyway, I’m really hoping that we can put a local team together to give it a try. Would be a lot of fun!

Zephyr Cove finished!

denisemor 1 November 26, 2017

With hats and the Holiday festival behind me, I finally found my way back to the Zephyr Cove shawl

It’s a really long shallow triangle shape, so I’m not quite sure how I’ll wear it yet (I don’t have a lot of skill with scarves)

But I love love love the colors, and it is so silky and squishy (alpaca, cashmere, and merino). Expect it will be quite toasty too when I’m all wrapped up in it.

And I also played around a little bit with a new mending technique this week.
A while back I’d blown out an elbow in one of my favorite wool shirts.

I thought I’d try creating a needlewoven patch to close it up.
I have lots of cool mending wool that a friend gave me a while back- from her mother’s sewing kit

so I picked out a couple of colors to match the plaid, and gave it a whirl.
It could be tidier, but I was able to get the area closed up, so I’m calling it a minor success.

my first foray into darning!