WIP Wednesday: Unsprung

Ahhhhhhh

There's still something to show you! I haven spun anything since whenever I last told you I did. I guess the white merino/some-sort-of-plastic-mix is just not appealing enough for me right now. Soonish I might get the rescue wheel cleaned and fixed, so I'll have 2 working wheels to keep going. Maybe that will help.*

I'm working with my handspun Sound of Music, and as you can see by the state of that cake, quite a bit of it has found its way into a project. I think I named it Windswept. It's stripy and I'm happy I mixed the length of the colour repeats, as that now means it's messy striped instead of fixed and ruled by the pattern alone. 

It's an interesting pattern, which leads to a shawl/scarf shape by adding different triangles on top of one another. It's different all right, and adding a new triangle after every few repeats (except for the middle part, which has a whopping 13 4-row repeats) makes this stockinette and garter stitch pattern very entertaining indeed. 

Because of the simple patterning, it's really nice for a self-striping yarn. This yarn doesn't need much, because it already attracts enough attention on its own. As much as I love luxury brand or indie dyed yarn, there isn't anything like making something from something you already made yourself. Does that make sense?

Looks like Spring, right? Look closely, I did a little tricksy. Our mulberry tree gets chopped back every Autumn, or it will cover half the garden and the pathway behind that wall. *Some* people who use the path don't enjoy hacking their way through our tree on their way to *important stuff*.** It looks awful like this, but once it starts up, it'll be blocking my way out in no time at all. 

Spot that. That, dear reader, is not dew. It's rain. Good for the garden, yes. I understand that bit.

But it makes our Japanese maple look so sad! We've had a few nights of frost in a row, so I sure hope the leaves will perk up a bit when the temperature gets back to normal. Spring definitely seems unsprung from where I'm standing***

At least the vines are waking up. I thought I should mention that... priorities, right?

 *maybe not
** or whatever
***in full rain regalia, fleece jacket, wool socks, gloves, wool cap.

WIP Wednesday: I Spy....

...with my little eye... something Blue...

Looking at my wardrobe, most of my handmade and bought shawls and most of my current projects, 'something blue' could be anything! Even the sky promises to be blue for a few more days at least, so the Spring sun gets plenty of airtime... I suspect we'll need to have a bit of rain at some point, or we'll get all of it on my days off I'm sure. 

Some sad news this week. Do you remember Tanit's Jacket, and how it was taking me to get anywhere? Last time you saw it, it looked exactly like this

If you remember the jacket, and have any clue about making anything by hand (crafting, cooking, you name it) you know that feeling. The feeling of a tiny little thought in the back of your head, getting louder only ever so slowly until at last, you can't ignore it any longer. You've checked, double checked, triple checked and checked all over again, until you can't deceive yourself any longer. 

In the case of the Tragic Tanit's Jacket the thought was thus: the button hole is on the wrong side...

I checked if I read the instructions wrong,* I checked for errata on the pattern website,** I turned and turned the WIP around and around to match the pictures on the pattern. I asked Mom. She told me I was right. I found others who knit the same jacket on Ravelry. At least one of them mentions the button holes being on the wrong side. I now know I'm not alone in either reading the pattern wrong or noticing the pattern is in fact wrong.

I frogged, and I frogged, and I frogged 4 balls of yarn. 

I guess there's a good side to all this frogging. I was wondering if I had chosen a size too large to start with, since I didn't do a great deal of gauge-getting, so now I'm knitting it a size smaller. If nothing else, there will be fewer stitches.

To make up for it (and because I really wanted something else on the bobbin), I spun, and spun, and spun and spun some more. You think you buy 100 grams of the stuff, but there's no end to a braid of Tardis fibre. I shouldn't be surprised, really. 

Here are the two full bobbins together. Now all I have to do is spin another 100 grams of white merino/nylon mix to make the third ply for this supposed sock yarn. 

Before I do that though, I get to do some selfish spinning. I love making for others, but sometimes, it's time for Me! Me! Me!

So when I got Tardis spun up, I quickly settled in to prep the latest instalment of Dutch Wool Diva in the colourway Sound of Music. I decided on very short and irregular colour changes, so I divided the braid into lots of narrow pieces.

I intend to ply it with some unknown fibre on a cone which I got a few years ago. I can't seem to find a cone with a label on it, but I'll try a bit before committing to it. I just thought they matched so well together!

I seem to fly through the little balls of fluff, so I expect it to be finished a lot quicker than most things I've spun this year. 

Finally, last week's budding leaf has grown into this already! It truly isn't winter any longer, the equinox was yesterday and people are still dumping rubbish amongst the daffodils. Not everything changes...

Keep knitting, touch wool!

*I didn't
**there weren't any

WIP Wednesday-on-Friday: Jump!

I hope you didn't all just jump off your seats, but it seemed like a good way to start a slightly late blog post. You see, I was busy, tired and have very little I can show you, so I felt a little uninspired. Fortunately, no one tells me when to write to you but me, and I gave myself two evenings off to deal with being me (and appointments). Since then, Spring has arrived, and since Spring is Dutch for Jump!.... well, you get my drift*

The reason I can't show you much is that much of what I did last weekend is a big secret. Recipient of said secret is currently 13,5cm (plus another week's worth of growing) in size, so he or she can't actually read this. Since at least half of the expecting parental unit reads this I'm only revealing the picture below.

100% 4-ply BFL, soaking

I had a lot of fun playing with colours, but you'll all have to wait about 6 months to see the result of the dyeing session. A little swatching happened, and I'm a little giddy just touching it. Oh! the softness! the springyness!** the colours! I can't wait to learn to dare to do some steeking.***

Below you will find a few pictures of some bootees that I knit. They were ordered by the happy recipient of some gift bootees late last year. I took some inspiration from the original (hello? multi-colour knit-purl ridges? how cute is that?) and re-imagined and modernized them to make the purl rows look a bit like icing, dripping down from in between layers of cake. 

They are knit from the sole up and in the round, leaving you with nothing more to do than weave in a few ends after finishing. There is also some slipped stitching, and a few short rows to cover the top of the foot.   

A yarnover-k2tog combo creates little holes to pull the string through with which you can secure**** the bootees. As you can see, there is a bit of colourwork going on, carrying the cake or icing colour for about 5 stitches behind the work. I choose to secure them, just so little wandering fingers or toes won't get caught in the float.  

I think the pom poms really finish them off, don't you? I really, really like the Clover Pom Pom Makers I got myself last Christmas. One of these, from start to completely finished (including trimming), takes less than 5 minutes! To boot, you don't have to mess around with cardboard when you use these...

Layered Cake

And finally, proof that Spring has really Sprung.*****

Enjoy it, and whatever you do, don't throw your litter in between the daffodils I pass on my way into work. You're spoiling my mornings, whomever you are. 

*I did just spell it out...
**Yes that is, in fact, a word. Casually insert it into dialogue.
***Technical term. Actually.
****Babies and bootees. There is never a guarantee they will stay on, but the string helps.
*****No seriously, it has. Even if I still have cold feet in my wool socks right this very moment.