#local wool

[craftingtocope]

after spending $150 on local wool (the softest wool i’ve ever worked with! in love! shoutout Stonehedge Fiber Mill’s sport Shepherd’s Wool) for my cycling sweater, im so chuffed to have enough left over to make some matching socks!! first time ordering yarn directly from the creator (after my local yarn shop ran out of stock) so i erred on the side of buying extra

[adharaphoenix]

project page

[craftingtocope]

having finished the front and back panels and 7 skeins remaining for the sleeves, i am beginning to suspect that i grossly overestimated the amount of yarn needed for this sweater

oh well guess i’ll end up with matching socks and extra local yarn that i know i love!

[epalmerbrown]

And now for those of you who have been hopefully tapping on the Arts & Crafts link in the menu since I fired up the blog again, a knitting post.

I’ve been meaning to knit a new tee for a while. I made a Marettimo tee a couple of summers ago and have worn it year round.  I used a fairly cheap Rowan yarn as the main colour and it has not worn all that well [also it’s an acrylic blend so I overheat like crazy].

The Marettimo fresh off the needles in 2018.

I decided to use lockdown to make a Navelli tee to replace it. I’ve had the yarn for this for a while: three skeins of Baa Baa Brew Marble 4 ply in the Mulier Fortis colours ‘Emmeline’ and ‘Valentina’, and the ooak  Tits Out Collective skein from Bluebell Yarns. Since both are a BFL/Masham 4 ply I knew that they’d work well together.

This knit took me longer that I expected [I started in April I think?], partly because I had to pause for some gift knitting, and partly because I was alternating the two skeins of Valentina to get an even colour [the joy of hand-dyed yarn is that each skein is unique, but man, alternating the skein every second row is dull], but I am really pleased with the end result:

I did modify the sleeves because the way the pattern is written the sleeves would have ended up as a double layer  – fine if you plan to wear this as a tee, but excessive when I’m primarily using it as a layer. It does mean that I sacrifice the way in which the additional weight would help the sleeves to hang correctly. The body also has a cm or so more length than it should because I went over and couldn’t be bothered to rip back  – can you tell I’m more of a project than a process knitter?

The problem with my being a project knitter is that my Anxiety [that control freak] tries to plan all the projects I will knit for the rest of my life, and basically sits in my brain with a stopwatch and clipboard yelling at me to stop browsing any patterns or admiring any yarn that isn’t on her list. The result is that I stop knitting because it stops being fun.

For me the solution is to knit what I call a palate-cleanser [mmm, sorbet!]: a one-skein super-simple shawl project, using whatever beautiful yarn most appeals to me at the time. All other WIPs are ignored until it’s done, and the process short-circuits Anxiety and helps me to enjoy finishing whatever else I was working on. My usual go-to pattern for this is Louise Tilbrook’s Fuss Free Festival Shawl, but I’ve already made 3 or 4 of those so I went for Justyna Lorkowska’s Close to You shawl using a skein of Countess Ablaze The Bluefaced Baron Fingering, colour ‘Girl at the Rock Show’.

I know this photo is terrible, I was in a hurry. But you get the idea.

I wound the skein at least a year ago so it was nice to get it out of a project bag and turn it into something. I’d like to think I’ll wear this, because I love the yarn, but I enjoy knitting shawls more than I enjoy wearing them [they fall off and try to lose themselves, or I strangle myself trying to adjust them – I should probably just resign myself to the fact that I’m a cowl girl], so this may end up in the gift knits box instead. 

On the needles

I’m 2 sections away from finishing a Nefelibata shawl that’s been languishing for months, and I’m making another Fuss Free Festival Shawl [I know, keep reading] as part of the Every Knitter Group KAL. Hopefully, I’ll be back to show at least one of those off next week.

Wardrobe Additions And now for those of you who have been hopefully tapping on the Arts & Crafts link in the menu since I fired up the blog again, a knitting post.

[frogeyedape]

So I do this fun thing sometimes where I spin in the grease, but I have not yet washed any of my greasy yarn. XD Having nothing better to do than fret, I decided to take some pictures of the process.

There are 4 hanks (1 in the pot before I started photographing), all fairly energized despite being two plied, either because I over- or underspun for balance. My goal at that point was more to *make yarn* and see what happened, rather than aiming for balanced or over/underplied yarn, so I'm ok with it being what it is. I'm really excited to see how much the color changes after a good long hot soak!