Never Quite As Planned

I wish I could tell you that my research concluded spectacularly and I'm fully refreshed after my brief blogging hiatus. Life, unfortunately, never quite goes as planned. The good news is that I will definitely be out of lab by mid-September and will most likely defend my PhD thesis sometime in October. The bad news is that I will be juggling thesis writing in between lab work and starting my new job in October. Needless to say, blogging may not be of the highest quality over the next two months and might not keep to my usual once-a-week schedule, but I will be here nonetheless.


Part of my disappointment about my hiatus comes from being unable to finish my lace shawl, which is the only project I worked on during August. Honestly, I seriously underestimated the amount of time that the border would require. I have about 6 more hours of work left on the shawl and now I'm facing another challenge--I'm running out of yarn.


I was actually smart and bought two 880-yard skeins for this project, which requires 800-950 yards. Unfortunately, one of those skeins ended up in the dyepot for my dyeing with turmeric tutorial. So I braved the danger that is KnitPicks to order an extra skein and came out unscathed. (Okay, so I did buy two skeins of Comfy Worsted in Whisker so that I can make an Elijah, but an extra $6 doesn't count.) With extra yarn in hand, I hope I can finally finish this shawl!

Brief Hiatus

I've decided to take a short break from blogging for the rest of August, as I'm currently focused on trying to finish up the research for my PhD. So much of my mental energy is going toward this work at the moment that I feel it is better to not blog at all than to divert some of this precious energy into making low-quality posts. I hope to finish up most of this research and return to a normal posting schedule by the first week of September.

Thanks for understanding and I will see you again in September!

Let's Talk About Lace

I recently pulled a half-finished lace shawl from the depths of my projects pile and decided that it's time to finally finish it. It's been on the needles for over two years but still needs a good amount of work done on it. It's my very first true lace shawl and, while I'm not certain how much I will wear it, I would like to at least scale the mountain that is lace and come down the other side.


The pattern is Miriam Felton's Lightweight Mountain Peaks Shawl and I'm knitting it with KnitPicks Bare Merino Laceweight. I'm kind of kicking myself now that I chose the lightweight version instead of the easier standard version (bigger needles and less yardage), but I think that the finer details in the lightweight shawl will be lovely.


One thing that I'm learning during this project is that I prefer 'lace knitting' to 'knitted lace'. The former has pattern on the right-side rows and purls on the wrong side, while the latter has pattern on both sides. The level of required concentration is the main difference between the two, though 'lace knitting' has the distinct benefit of not needing 'purl 2 together through the back loop' stitches. Those are starting to drive me crazy.


Luckily, I just finished the main 'knitted lace' section and have moved on to two whole charts of 'lace knitting'. I'm hoping to make some major progress on the shawl in the next few weeks, but it doesn't help that even the simplest rows take me over 10 minutes to knit at this point.

Coils and Cores

I recently set out to learn core spinning, which I read about in the book Spin Control. Proper core spinning involves wrapping roving around a core, which is usually a millspun yarn. (You can see an example of true core spinning on this blog.) While I plan to do true core spinning soon, I decided to first tackle a similar technique, core plying, which wraps yarn around the core instead of roving. In my case, I wrapped a thick and thin single around my core, giving me these lovely baubles.


This type of handspun is more commonly referred to as coiled yarn. To make coiled yarn, you need to hold the core firmly and the wrapping yarn loosely at a ~90 degree angle to the core as you ply. Push the wraps together every so often to keep the coils tight and to completely cover the core.

It sounds simple, but I had a huge problem keeping the core from overtwisting during this process. Next time I will be sure to adjust the twist in the core prior to plying. I also had some issues with the baubles getting stuck in the hooks on my flyer, but that was more annoying (or was it comical?) than affecting the stability of the final yarn.


The real question is what to do with this cool yarn once you spin it? I had no desire to knit with it so I decided to put it to a more decorative use:


I believe this necklace idea is from the spinning book Intertwined. The whole thing is held together by a wrapped section in the back, which I spun up out of some excess roving. I Navajo-plied this little bit of yarn and I like how it results a nice color progression across the wrapped section.


I'm continually amazed by the all of the different types of yarn I can spin, from coiled yarn and fractally spun yarn, to textured singles and laceweight. I've been spinning so much in the past 6 months that I'm finally feeling confident enough to try new things and assume that they will work out (and to not feel bad if they don't). I guess my mother was right when she told me 'practice makes perfect'.

The Booties Go Marching Two by Two, Hurrah!

I'm having one of those shout-from-the-rooftop moments where I want the whole world to know that I finished all of the baby knitting and I'm finally on top of things! Now all I need is for my friends to stop getting pregnant.

My default baby gift was a Norwegian Sweet Baby Cap and a pair of Magic Slippers. This wasn't necessarily my favorite bootie pattern when I did a comparison of baby booties on my blog a little while ago, but it was certainly the simplest to knit and to finish. Considering the fact that I made 10 of these booties, I think it was the right choice. Plus, I just discovered how cute this pattern is when you use a different yarn for the sole and the upper, so when my friends ignore my no-pregnancy request, I won't say no to whipping up a few more of these slippers.


So now things are on their way to their new owners, along with one of my Hogwarts skeins that is going to a not-pregnant friend. This leaves me with free reign to do some fun little projects all for myself. I think I'll learn to core spin and maybe even try to finish the lace shawl that has been languishing on my needles for over two years. I'm excited!

Enchanting Skeins

As promised last week, I'm showing off the results of my nerdy little spinning project. I therefore present the Hogwarts House founders: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin.


It's funny that each of these skeins has some characteristic, besides the color, that correlates it to its House founder. For example, the Gryffindor skein has a lot of character, the Ravenclaw skein taught me a new plying technique, the Hufflepuff skein seems the most homespun to me, and the Slytherin skein can best be described as sleek.


The sleekness of the Slytherin skein comes from it's 50% silk content. This was my first time spinning with a silk blend and I was amazed by how easily it drafted. Too easily in my opinion. I might go for an 80/20 wool/silk blend next time, but there is no denying that the 50/50 blend is wonderful to bury your face in. Not that I would ever do such a thing.


The skeins are each unique and special, but I think that Gryffindor is my favorite. I loved spinning the batts from Hobbledehoy and I adore the final yarn. I couldn't help but order two more batt sets from this seller (one in Willow and the other in Italian Soda). I think my next little spinning project will be to learn core spinning on at least one of these batts. I'll keep you posted on how that goes!

Handspun and Holiday

Wow! A lot of stuff has happened in the last week, including finishing my Liesl cardigan and my nerdy little spinning project, not to mention that my father was in town for the holiday weekend. But before I talk about any of that, I want to say thank you for all of your nice comments on my Fairy Lights hat pattern, which even got a nice little mention on Whip Up! I am continually amazed that my little pattern scribbles are so well received.

Now, onto the knitting!


As expected, I ran out of handspun and had to crop the cardigan. I tried to make the most of it by changing around the placement of the buttons, finally settling on using two buttons along the bottom edge and overlapping the fronts slightly. I fully admit to using a yarn over as the second button hole, but sometimes you have to choose 'pretty' over 'technically correct'. Anyway, I really like the look of the resultant neckline and the snug fit that accentuates my bustline. Sometimes the little details, like button placement, make all of the difference.


Unfortunately, you'll have to wait until next week to see the results of my Hogwarts spinning project. (Girl's got to have something to blog about each week.) In the meantime, I snapped some great photos this weekend during our tour of southern Wisconsin that I thought I'd share.

People Waiting for the Fireworks at Sunset at the UW Terrace

Bottling Beer at the New Glarus Brewery

The Garden at Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin

The Grand Carousel (the Largest in the World) at the House On The Rock

It was a great holiday weekend and I had a lot of fun spending time with my father. I hope your weekend was equally enjoyable and you got lots of knitting done!