Fibre Friday #3

This week I've started lots of new things (as well as done a little bit of finishing), but first I've been knitting on my toe up vanilla socks out of 'Pinkalicious Rainbow' by Yarnink. I'd started the first sock last week and was lamenting my lack of the Fish Lips Kiss heel (which has since been remedied - Thankyou to Aleks for gifting that to me). First time around I knit a short row heel, but that didn't fit right, so I ripped back and did the pattern for the Gusset Heel Basic Socks by Wendy D. Johnson from her book Socks From The Toe Up and it fit perfectly - I'd forgotten how good gusset heels fit. I've finished the first sock and knit around three inches on the second one while skyping my friends this week. Sidenote: Videocalling, how did we cope without it?

Whilst skimming through Socks From The Toe Up I came across the Tic-Tac-Toe-Up socks, with a fun pattern of X's and O's (I sit and mutter "XO XO Gossip Gir"l as I'm knitting them, but that's just me...) which I've cast on in some yarn I hand dyed a while back, on size 2mm (US 0) needles. I've done another 1.5 pattern repeats since I took the above picture and I'm pleased with how it's knitting up so far - the lace is nice and stretchy so they should be a good fit despite the tiny needle size.

Another new cast on this week is the Less Is More Shawl by Maanel, which is a free pattern on Ravelry. This is being knit on size 3.75mm (US 5) needles - the pattern calls for slightly smaller needles but I liked the drape of the fabric that this size gave. I'm using some of my hand dyed merino 2ply from last week's dyeing session - I love the coral colour, but I'm not a big fan of the base, there's not much twist so it wouldn't hold up well for a garment. I have around 800m of it, so I'm just going to knit until I either run out of yarn / get bored, any guesses as to which will come first?!

Finally on to something I finished this week - my Ginkgo Crescent Shawl by Jade Keaney which is another free pattern on Rav and was perfect for a single skein of Madeline Tosh 'Tosh Merino Light' that I picked up from Purl Soho in NYC this time last year as it's a single (non plied) yarn that wouldn't hold up to long term wear. This was in the 'Candlewick' colourway - mustard yellow is my all time favourite colour and I'm so pleased that it works well with coral, which is a very close second!

I wear all my shawls and shawlettes as scarves, I don't really wear outfits that need shawl-shawls, if that makes sense!

On to spinning and I've got a lovely blend of BFL, Cashmere & Nylon from Lime Green Jelly on my wheel at the moment. I'm spinning it as fine as I can, with the intention of creating a 3ply sock yarn. But before I could get that on the wheel I  had to get this off...
Ever feel like your equipment is conspiring against you? That's how I felt winding my Just A Day Dream yarn off the bobbins, literally everything went wrong. One of the ends popped off a bobbin, causing a huge tangle. Then the yarn kept snagging on my Lazy Kate and snapping. Then the swift dropped as I was winding it onto it, messing up my yardage count. So in the end I wound what turned out to be over 1000yds of a 2ply from one swift, through my new shiny Schacht Yardage counter, onto another swift. This process took about 5hrs+ and the swift kept slipping, so it's created a hank I can't twist (hence the lack of shiny photos of pretty finished skeins) and that is going to be an utter nightmare to wind into a cake. But that'll be a story for next week I should expect! The moral of this story is Buy Good Equipment (which I have started doing with all recent purchases) and also Buy A Skein-winder so this Never Ever Happens Again.

But on the plus side - over 1000 yards of a 2ply from 200g - I consider that to be a success! Just don't count the knots in the skein...

This saga was the first time I used my Schacht yardage counter and it was the only bit of equipment that did what it was supposed to do. It's my very first Schacht product (it's not a widely accessible brand here in the UK) I ordered it online from Webs and I look forward to see how it holds up to future use. Good equipment is a good investment.

Finally, I dyed this rainbow braid of BFL - which is a little bit patchy, but is going to be so much fun to spin up. I'm thinking of plying it with something neutral - maybe a grey or some undyed fibre, to tone it down just a little.

Phew. That's been a long post to write. That's what happens when there's no one around to talk knitting with! I'm hopefully going to a knitting group on Wednesday night, so I shall report back on how that goes, next week.

I hope you've had a wonderful week, happy Friday everyone!

♥