From Fibre to Finished Object

Very excited to share this little scarf with you.  Recently I've completed next to no knitting for myself, so when I spotted a little gap in the scheduled knitting, I grabbed my handspun polwarth skein from FiberArtemis which has been sitting in pride of place on my desk for quite a while now.

I've posted about it here before (and on Ravelry here) - the fibre is 100% polwarth from this lovely etsy shop.  It felt dense yet soft, and drafted beautifully.  There's a polwarth/silk mix in my stash from this shop too, so I might make a little time over christmas to spin it up a little finer for another shawl...  

Since I'm being good (and have spent all of my pennies on presents), the pattern is also one previously purchased on Ravelry - this is Artesian by Rosemary Hill. 

The pattern was very easy to follow, employing short rows for shaping.  The chart is laid out in a way I've not used before, so I used the written instructions, which are nice and easy to follow.    

And the yarn?  Oh dear, I loved it so much.  It's all smooshy and soft and, dare I say it, relatively evenly spun and plied throughout... (not that the garter stitch and yarn over pattern would show if it did!).

 

 

This is what the lovely fluff looked like when it arrived, and after spinning.   What are you working on at the moment?  I have something quite exciting to show you in a couple of weeks, but it'll have to stay under wraps until then :p

  

Spinning & Un-broken Phones

As a method of procrastination, I appear to have spun all of the things.  Summer is here, I bought new oil for the old wheel, I've got better things to do - so obviously I'm spending hours with the wheel!

The steady trundle of my old wheel is hypnotic, & the small pleasure of seeing the bobbin of yarn grow as it fills with yarn is addictive.  

The yarns this month are a wee mixture from a stash that has been slowly building.  It'd be great to say that I'm implimenting a 'one in-one out' policy, if not 'all out', but I don't really trust myself. 

Another *very* exciting event this week is that I had my phone screen fixed!  Once the initial barrage of glass splinters had passed, I had largely grown to accept the dilapidated appearance of my phone.  Yes, there was tape over the top holding the pieces in, but it worked, and I was ok with it.  

I have a rant but, long story short - friends & family teasing about state of phone / concerned about my delicate wee face = not a problem.  Ladies at work implying at the condition of my phone reflects my lifestyle choices and how dilligently I'll do my job = not ok.  It's fixed now, but for the wrong group of people.

 

On to the yarn! (you can also see all of these in my Ravelry stash).   After my ravings about gradient yarns earlier this month, I couldn't help but spin up all of the gradient braids I could lay my hands on. 

I have no preferred method for spinning gradients, I'm aware that many people like to chain ply to preserve the gradient to it's best, but I quite enjoy the overlapping effects achieved by splitting the braid into two, & just seeing how the two halves marry up when you ply them.

In this case, with the polwarth, I left a lot of black on one half & a lot of blue on the other, so the marching is dubious but has resulted in wonderful short-ish runs of 'barber-pole' effect, which worked really well!

 

This lovely grey skein is a sample from Sara's Texture Crafts, (who dyed the beautiful yarn used in the Fearlas Mor sock pattern). 

It's made up of Alpaca, BFL, Merino & Silk.  Is is light, very easy to draft and well blended.  It's dreamy and I think I might have to find some more of this beautiful fluff.  As it stands, I see a little pair of wristy/mitts?  We shall see.  It ended up at 88 yards of... probably DK.

Polwarth from Fiber Artemis.  This one was good.  The fibre itself feels so smooth, and as such feels a little dense so I worried about how easy it'd be to spin, but this was wonderful too.  So even with minimal effort.  The gradient is lovely too - I'd usually go for a more prolonged gradient, in that this one changes colour relatively quickly, but we'll soon see how it knits up!

I've noticed that in this etsy shop, you're allowed to chose which base you'd like the colour dyed onto, which seems like a very nice option!  I have another braid still to spin from this dyer, this time a mix of polwarth & silk, so very intrigued to see how that goes!

Last but not least, Merino/Seacell/Shetland from Hilltop Cloud.  I love how the seacell pops through this yarn a little bit, giving little runs of pearly white through the warm berry shades.  This is another gradient braid, which changes gradually from purple, then pink, through orange to yellow.  Yum.  It's like a fruit pastel roll.

As ever, fibre from Hilltop Cloud is never difficult to draft, and spins up easily.  This lot has ended up around a DK, so I'm thinking a wee cowl might be in order!



That's my lot, I'm off to a BBQ now for my grandpops birthday!  What do you have planned for this weekend?

Glorious Gradients Roundup

 

Recently I've found I just can't get enough of gradient yarns. 

1. Knitting Goddess - I first found these beautiful little packs of yarn at YarnDale last year.  Composed of 75% superwash british wool, 25% nylon, they'll suit most projects.  Pictured above, these packs come in sets of seven 10g mini-skeins, each a slightly different shade from the last. I've split each in half because I plan to knit little mittens out of this set, and they're knitting up wonderfully.

2. Namolio - these cakes were found at a yarn festival, but Namolio also has an online shop.  The yarn is simply stated as 'wool', so I'm not entirely sure how it'll knit up or behave.  The colour changes are nice & gradual, and the yarn does feel nice - I imagine it'll soften even more with washing.  It's approximately 4-ply / DK, and I do look forward to knitting with it, though haven't found a perfect project yet!

3. EasyKnits Sushi Rolls - I adore these.  My roll is in the Peach Pie colourway.  These sock blanks are dyed symmetrically by Jon of easyknits, and unravel as you knit.  I'm planning on making some socks, knitting from both ends toward the middle to make use of as much of this yarn as I can, would be a shame if any of it went to waste! 

4. Kismet Gradient Packs - these are big packs!  They're made up of 5 skeins of 50g each, meaning you can make a significant project out of these little beauties and composed of superwash merino & nylon, so would suit a range of projects.  

I've used Kismet yarn recently in my Talavera pattern published in this quarters Pom Pom Magazine, and it was a delight to knit with.  The t-rex colourway is SO GREEN, the depth and consistency of colour is absolutely marvellous.  so a set of these pretties might just have to find their way to me too.

 

5. Wollelfe - having never ordered from Wollelfe myself I can't describe the yarn, but they do look pretty. My favourite from the etsy shop is this 'Granny Green', which would make a beautiful summer shawlette.  Most of these gradients are in superwash merino but there are some other fibre types available. 

6. Countess Ablaze has some amazing sock rolls, but unfortunately they disappear in minutes, so I can't find you a pretty picture :(  Her website is here regardless - you can sign up to her newletter to find out when the shop will be restocked.  

7. Natali Stewart -  whose stall I noticed at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival.  It was filled with beautiful silks, and the cakes are no exception.  Being silk they aren't cheap, but most are also laceweight so will go a long way.  I'm very tempted to move into the realm of laceweight knitting just to make use of a yarn like this one. 

 

8. Saras Texture Craft - last but not least, I've knit with this lovely yarn before too, and it made a yummy pair of socks.  Sara has now begun dyeing gradient cakes, and they're good.  

 

As for fibre?  I adore the gradient fibre from Hilltop Katie.  For example, this gorgeous braid, which I spoke about in this previous blog post, and am spinning up today (it's currently soaking, but I'll keep you updated!). 

What's your favourite gradient yarn?  Have you managed to knit anything with it yet or is it still sitting as a squishing ball on your desk?