Bliss sock(s)

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Baby alpaca sock

The first alpaca sock is finished. I’m going to call these my Bliss socks, because even better than handling this yarn while knitting it, is pulling it onto one’s foot. Absolute, indulgent, bliss.

These won’t be going-to-work socks, or bushwalking socks, because they won’t be hard-wearing enough. Nope, these will be ‘curling up on the lounge on a wintry Sunday afternoon with a freshly-made Earl Grey tea and chocolate fudge’ socks.

Of course, given that it’s still summer here, I’ll have a little while to wait for winter, but I’ll finish the other one soon so that I can practice wearing them during autumn 🙂

Finished!

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I kept working at the loom yesterday. I decided to take a holiday from all the long list of Should Be Doing things and weave for a couple more hours instead. And then the end of the scarf was near, so I had to finish it, didn’t I?

end of the warp

I had about 8″ less of the red warp at the end than I did at the beginning, so the scarf is not symmetrical in terms of mirror repeat at each end. (Long story about how that happened that I won’t go in to here.)

However, despite the fact that I’m normally into balance and symmetry, I’m comfortable with this asymmetry. Not that I have much choice to be any other way 🙂  But this whole project was to stretch me into doing some new things, so being asymmetrical is one more new thing.

back rod

There it is, as far as I could go!

rainbow scarf - finished

Off the loom at last. I still have to hem stitch one end, finish the fringe, wash it, and cut off all the loose ends, but the weaving is finished, and yes, I’m happy with it!

Hmm… I wonder what I will weave next…

Blues and greens

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The loom has been silent for well over a week, due to the demands of other aspects of my life, not to mention the heat in the sunroom the couple of times I’ve contemplated taking a few minutes to weave. However, this morning was overcast, I didn’t have to be anywhere else or have urgent deadlines, so off to the loom I went.

Rainbow scarf - blue into jade

From the dark blue of the last photo, I’ve shaded into the jade green – not quite as smoothly as I’d like, but even though I tried dyeing a blue in between the dark blue and the jade, it didn’t come out quite the right intermediate shade to blend the two. However, it’s smoother than the first scarf’s transitions in this colour of the warp.

Rainbow scarf - jade into green

Then came blending into the green, and as with the first scarf, the two shades I have work wonderfully with the warp colour at this point, so that the transitions are very smooth and almost invisible.

Being up to the green means that I’ve only got a few centimetres to go before I’m half-way through the scarf 🙂 The second half should go more quickly, because I don’t have to experiment with and decide on colours, just work in reverse what I’ve done in the first half.

Into the blue

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C̩line asked for more progress photos Рso here it is, into the blue shades:

blue part of rainbow scarf

The warp dyeing was a bit blotchy at this stage, but I’m telling myself that adds character!

I’m pleased with progress, even though it will seem painfully slow to some weavers. If I was able to sit down for a full day, or even for hours at a stretch, I would get it down very quickly, but as it is I get half an hour here and there in between all the other work I should be doing – PhD and writing have to get fitted in, in addition to my job. Weaving is my ‘play’ time.

I’ll start shading in the green next – but as today and tomorrow are all-day work days, it may not be until later in the week.

Rainbow scarf progress

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rainbow scarf painted warp

The weather’s been quite hot lately, which makes our sunroom too hot to work in except in the mornings – and I haven’t had a lot of free time in the mornings. It’s a bit too dark at night, when it’s cooler, so progress on the second rainbow scarf has been slow. However, this morning I’m working on it! I’ve even done a little more since this photo was taken, so I’m up to the purple part of the warp, and about to go into two threads of dark blue for the weft. The colours in this photo are a little ‘out’, but convey the general idea. The colour transitions are going more smoothly than in the first one, due to the extra colours and the more gradual shading over more pattern repeats.

mauve and yellow scarf warp

I’ve been planning for ages to weave a blanket for my  friend’s baby, who was born in August. It took me a while to settle on colours and order the yarn – I finally got the yarn before Christmas. I’m planning on doing twill blocks in the three colours, but want to do a sample first. So, I wound a warp last night for the sample and, as I’ve done several times before, I made the ‘sample’ warp long enough to be a scarf. It’s a 5-ply Bendigo yarn so it won’t take too long to weave, and this way I get to get a reasonable idea of how the yarn, structure and colours will work, and all going well, my friend will get a scarf to match her daughter’s blanket 🙂

I’ll weave this one on the big loom that I’m hoping to sell. I’m sure that once I get the blanket warp on it, someone will decide they want to buy the loom right away!

alpaca sock progress

I watched an episode of Taggart last night, so the alpaca version of theLatvian sock has grown by a couple of pattern repeats. The yarn is pure bliss to handle.

Now I’ve had my cup of tea and blog break, it’s back to the loom.

With one sock on…

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I finished knitting the first blue lacy sock about a week ago.  Since I think the yarn’s a bit heavy for the pattern, I thought I might knit the pattern in the soft alpaca I  bought the other week, and not rush to finish the  second blue sock.

So, I’ve started the alpaca ones, and the yarn is gorgeous – a luscious treat to handle. The blue bluebell isn’t in the same league, but you know, it’s growing on me. It might be just as well that I’ve got two sets of needles – I can see both on the go at once!

Blue lacy Latvian socks

(Yes, yes, so my leg is not a Barbie doll! Memo to self: next time, wear something slightly more respectable than ancient track pants.)

I’m also knitting a little hand-spun jacket from a white merino-cross fleece for our group’s doll raffle.  I’m making it up as I go along, with twisted cables on the fronts. I hope I’ll have enough yarn – it’s stuff from the stash – if not, it will be a waistcoat 🙂

The doll project is taking up some of my thoughts just now, as we made the dolls last weekend, and now have to dress them. I still have a little handwoven fabric left from the last time we raffled dressed dolls (see below); there’s enough for a waistcoat.  It’s a plain weave with small checks of slightly thicker yellow on a background of fine black. I loved the fabric so much that I’ve woven a length with mauve on the black – I just have to find the time, courage, and pattern to make it up into a jacket for me!

handwoven doll clothes

Treadle, treadle, treadle…

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I plied the very fine merino yesterday, in several hour-long stints. I used the lace flyer’s 20:1 ratio to make the process a bit quicker, but it still took about 3 hours. That’s with a reasonable speed of treadling, but not super-fast manic.

That’s the trouble with fine spinning – lots of effort and it doesn’t look like much (until the very final stage when you have a completed lace scraf.) Anyway, 3 hours of plying and the bobbin was nowhere near half-full, but that was all I’d spun. I wound it off into a skein and weighed it – 30 grams.

I’ll need more for the project I have in mind – probably about the same amount again. However, this time I’m going to weigh out the fibre beforehand, put it in two labelled bags for each ply, and then I’ll know as I’m spinning how much I’ve done.

I’ll wash the skein this morning and hopefully it will dry in the sunroom during the day, then I’ll photograph it.

After that effort, I got out the silk caps that I bought the other week, and spun some of them (while watching the episode of Taggart about the community devasted by foot and mouth.) The spinning of the caps went better than the couple of previous times I’ve done it, so I almost enjoyed the process!

Mid-week progress

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Hmm… not a whole lot of the progress stuff. I watched a DVD the other night, so that was spinning time – and I think I’ve done about 25 or 30 grams of the fine merino, so next time I watch some TV I’ll start plying that. I did find the lace flyer in preparation for the plying, as the higher ratios will speed up the process.

The first blue lacy sock is almost done – about one more pattern repeat before I start on the toes. I might get it finished tomorrow night. I’ve done no more weaving since the weekend, but hopefully I’ll get the second rainbow scarf finished this weekend.

I’ll have to decide what I’m going to do for the Armidale Show. I’m not competitive at all, but I feel strongly that I should enter something so that there are at least some entries in the various spinning and weaving classes. The pavilion contests will just die if there are no entries, so I try to do my bit. But it’s a bit tricky when I haven’t actually made a whole lot in the past year! The second rainbow scarf will go in (that gives a deadline for it to be finished by!) and I’m thinking that I might dye some handspun yarn this weekend and knit either socks or mittens.

I’ll have a look at my fibre stash and see about spinning a skein or two for the spinning sections. Yes, I could enter the white merino I’m spinning now, but since one of my skeins won the fine spinning section two years ago, and the resulting scarf won last year, it might be regarded as overdoing things 😉 So perhaps I should challenge myself and do a fancy skein, or a medium-weight blended skein or something.

I think I’ll need to watch a few DVDs in the next couple of weeks, to have some spinning time 🙂  However, I have to fit all this in plus finding the pattern for the dolls we’re going to make and raffle, organise our group’s move to new premises, do a demonstration on Australia Day, and make some hand-spun and/or handwoven clothes for the dolls. Oh, yes, and go to the day-job, do some work on the PhD, and get some writing done.

Inkle bookmarks

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Inkle woven bookmark

I wove some bookmarks on my larger inkle loom a couple of months ago, but ran out of the silver beads to put on the ends, so only two out of the five are finished so far. However, just before Christmas I found some more of the beads at the markets, so now I can twist the fringes on the others. I sent one of the finished ones to a friend; I’ll probably use the others as small gifts here and there. I’ll probably weave some more at some stage, as it was a quick and easy thing to do, and I can have the loom at the computer and weave while I’m thinking of words to write!

Inkle woven bookmark detail

The pattern was a very sinple one – quick and mindless to weave! – and the yarns were fine wool yarns from my stash. I wove these ones in black and purple for a halloween theme, but if I weave another lot they’ll be in different colours.

Stash enhancement

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On Friday, I went to the local wool shop, and bought an extra ball of Bluebell for the blue lacy socks, and two balls of a luscious, soft, alpaca yarn. I’m going to finish the blue lacy socks, even though the yarn/pattern combination isn’t perfect – they’ll be okay, just not my favourite pair! However, I’m also going to knit a pair in the alpaca. I’m not sure how well it well wear, though, but I guess I’ll find out. Worst case – well, I have a darning needle, and I know how to use it!

alpaca yarn

The wool shop also has some spinning supplies, and some silk caps came home with me, as well. I don’t actually really enjoy spinning silk caps (although I love spinning silk tops!), but I’d like to have some slightly slubby silk yarn for weaving, which is how my spinning of silk caps turns out.

Speaking of spinning, on Friday night and last night, the DH and I watched DVDs – rather than knit, I did some spinning. I’m spinning some merino very fine, for a lacy scarf. The trouble with spinning very fine – and we’re talking finer than cotton thread fine – is that it takes so long to get much done. After a 2-hour DVD, there still didn’t seem very much at all on the bobbin! I started this spinning about two months ago; since I only spin when watching DVDs, and I do very little of that these days as I spend most evenings writing, it’s taken me all this time to spin probably about 20 grams of yarn. There’s a lot of meters in that 20 grams, but it still doesn’t feel like a great achievement… and I need at least 50 grams to make a decent length scarf. The small triangular one I made last year took about 20 grams, and I want the next one to be rectangular and much larger. However, I don’t think, at this rate, that I’m going to get enough spun AND knit it up in time for this year’s Armidale Show – so last year’s achievements there has little chance of being equalled this year!

Lace scarf