Stash Dash Progress Update

It's been two weeks since my last Stash Dash recap and I've accomplished a fair bit of both knitting and spinning in that time. Below is my list of current FO's, with everything finished since the last recap in bold.

Old Romance cardigan - 1360m

Lime Green Jelly BFL Cashmere Nylon 3ply - 370m 

Handspun Socks (out of the above handspun yarn) - 233m

Tic-Tac-Toe-Up socks - 355.5m

Easy Peasy Newborn Hats x8 - 336m (actually, slightly more than this as I haven't weighed the last two hats I knitted)

Jaffa Cake socks - 310.5m

Katy's Birthday socks - 310.25m (a gift, not pictured above)

Rainbow Trekking socks - 284.75m

Mixed Lilacs hand-dyed merino 2ply - 237m

Simple Skyp socks - 220.5m

Cocoon Hat - 121m

Spring Beret - 113m

The following spinning meterage is the results of my Tour De Fleece efforts so far: 

Nunoco Wild Wood N Ply - 128m

SpinCityUK Faux Cashmere 2ply - 115m

Taylor Made Yarns Autumn Sunset 2ply - 193m

Total so far: 4638.5m 

There's just under a month left of Stash Dash 2015 and as I only have another 361.5m to go, I think there's a good chance I'll meet my 5km target! I have a second sock on the needles and I have the first of another pair finished. I think there is a week left of the Tour De Fleece and I'm hoping to finish the 3ply sock yarn I've been working on, in time to include it. 

Right, back to my plying I think… 

♥

Fibre Friday #23

This is probably the longest Fibre Friday post to date, which shows that I have been doing too much knitting and not enough studying for the theory part of my driving test - but hey ho, a girl has to have her priorities! This week is all about hats and socks, as you will soon see ;)

 I put another pattern repeat or two on my Seaweed socks by Wendy D. Johnson. I'm knitting these out of a 75% Merino, 20% Nylon, 5% Stellina blend from Hand Dyed by Kate in the 'Midnight Sparkle' colourway. Progress on this particular sock has slowed as the high twist yarn feels a bit hard on my hands - I think that's because of the heat and my hands drying out though, rather than the yarn!

 I've made more significant progress on my second Budleigh sock from Coop Knits Socks (volume one) by Rachel Coopey. I'm knitting it out of Skein 'Top Draw' in the 'Blackcurrant' colourway. I've put four pattern repeats on the cuff this week and I'm one repeat away from the heel flap - or as I like to think of it - breaking the back of the sock! I really need to vast on some vanilla socks for my take-along knitting, but I think I'm going to wait until I have another skein of handspun sock yarn to cast on…

 I have also knit up another of the Easy Peasy Newborn Hats by Keri McKiernan - this is becoming a weekly thing now, I probably need to find another pattern for my sock yarn scraps… I used up the leftover Hedgehog Fibres Sock in the 'Seaglass' colourway that I used for my Simple Skyp socks a couple of weeks back.

I cast on and knit a big chunk of a Spring Beret by Natalie Larson - I knit this pattern earlier in the year for a Mystery Hat Swap KAL and I liked it so much I decided to knit up another one. This time I'm using Debbie Bliss 'Cashmerino Aran' in colour '300076', which is a lot greener in reality, than it is in the photo! I'm not sure if I'll be keeping this one for myself, or if it'll wind up as a gift, but it's an enjoyable pattern to knit, and anything on 5.5mm (US 9) knits up so quickly!

I needed another pair of vanilla socks to have as my take-along knitting, as the Seaweed Socks require slightly too much concentration to knit at the bus stop, so I cast on one out of some Austermann Step I had in the stash, in the colourway 'Aubergine Easy'. I used a tubular cast on - following these instructions from the Purl Bee - and although I've used the cast on before, this is the first time I've used it for socks, so hopefully it'll be nice and stretchy!

I finished spinning my Nunoco batt and chain plied it, creating 128m of a tweedy gradient yarn in a heavy worsted weight. I don't spin batts nearly often enough and I must get some more for the stash… Tour De Fleece is depleting it rapidly!

I knit up a Cocoon Hat - a free pattern by La Maison Rililie available here - out of my Nunoco yarn (the living room makes everything look x4359 yellower than real life). It's a simple broken rib hat, with a 1x1 ribbed brim - but my favourite part of the pattern is the first three rows are stockinette, which stops the ribbing stretching out of shape and becoming too big. I had just enough yarn to knit a slouchy fit hat, which I think will become a staple when the weather cools down. I will definitely be knitting more of this pattern, maybe for Christmas gifts…

In other spinning related news, I've been monogamously working on another braid from Taylor Made Yarns, this time in the colour 'Autumn Rainbow' - I've nearly finished spinning it - I hope to get it done by the end of the weekend, so I can ply next week. It should hopefully wind up a chain plied sock weight, but we shall see!

This week, for the first time in months, I did some dyeing. I was trying to get a speckled effect - and failed miserably, but I really like the colours I wound up with, particularly the bottom right berry shade. I think I know where I went wrong with the speckling too, so I can try a different technique next time. All five are merino/nylon blends so will probably grow up to be socks, eventually.

I also dyed up some Polwarth and I really like the jewel tones of the rainbow braid - this will probably be next on the wheel when I've finished the Taylor Made Yarns.

Finally on the dyeing front, I dyed a few more silk scarves - these were intended as gifts but will no doubt be purloined by my mother before I have a chance to give them away!

I also wound up a bunch of mini skeins of leftover sock yarn for a good friend of mine, as a thankyou for her sending me a copy of Socktopus by Alice Yu - which incidentally looks fabulous so I'm sure some of the patterns will wind up on my needles soon…

So it's been a pretty busy week over here! But it's made me realise I really need to cast on something that is not a sock or a hat… Hah. I hope you have a lovely weekend, whatever you get up to! I need to do the studying for my theory test that I've been putting off… (not that I've booked my theory test yet, but still. Must. Pass. Driving. Test)!

♥

Knitting with Handspun Yarn

I love spinning. This might sound obvious, but it's something I tend to forget if I don't do it very often - which is why tour de fleece is so good - it's encouraging me to get on the wheel every day.
 I've started to amass a collection of handspun skeins - all waiting for the 'right' project. Jasmin of The Knitmore Girls podcast says you should knit with your handspun right away as it doesn't age well - which is something I wholeheartedly agree with. I have a few skeins lying around from last year's Tour De Fleece and while I was pleased with them at the time, looking at them now leaves a lot to be desired. So it makes sense to knit with yarn when you feel proud of it, rather than slightly embarrassed by it!

The problem I'm having is finding patterns that suit the yarns I like to spin. My ideal knitting projects are cabled or textured - any of the Brooklyn Tweed designs - that suit solid or semi-solid yarns. However, I find spinning fibre of one colour to be rather tedious - which is probably why I've yet to spin yarn for a sweater. I like to work with fibres in a whole range of colours - the more the merrier, as it livens up the process.

The result is I'm always on the look out for simple projects of varying yardage that will showcase the yarn, rather than try and compete with it. I thought I'd share three of the patterns I've knit using my handspun so far...

The Age of Brass and Steam Kerchief by Orange Flower Yarn was my first 'big' project using my handspun - a 2ply from 200g of fibre by Little Owl Crafts. I modified it slightly so I could use up as much of the yarn as I could, and I was really pleased with the striping effect all the colours had. It's not something I wear too often, as there are a lot of colours, but it was fun to knit all the same.

The Linus Shawl by Annett Cordes is the biggest handspun project I've undertaken to date. I had a 1000yds of a 2ply from fibre by Just A Daydream in the 'Olive Bowl' colourway and I wanted something I could use all of the yardage for. The yarn was fractally spun - which creates the blending stripes you can see above and I knew I wanted something that was predominantly garter stitch so I could show off the colour changes. With this pattern you can knit until you run out of yarn, which was perfect - it's a very easy knit and is a really wearable shawl. I will probably knit another before too long.

Ever since I started spinning one of my main goals was to spin a three ply sock yarn. I've now just about mastered getting my singles fine enough so the end result is a fingering weight, but before that I used Wendy D. Johnson's Sport Weight Toe-Up Socks with a Gusset pattern, to make my very first pair of handspun socks. In hindsight they're a little too big, but they'll be cozy when winter rolls around again.

If I'm ever going to reach my goal of knitting 10 things out of my handspun in 2015, I really need to start choosing some smaller projects! Although I did start and a finish a handspun hat yesterday, which I'll photograph for Fibre Friday this week…

What are some of your favourite patterns for handspun yarn? I'm going to share a few favourites from my ravelry queue before the Tour De Fleece is over (optimistically, this week sometime, but I have a lot of less interesting things I need to get done!).

♥

Fibre Friday #22

This week marks the start of the Tour De Fleece, so I actually have spinning content for once! But first - onto the knitting chatter...
 I turned the heel of my Seaweed Socks by Wendy D. Johnson last night and managed to knit a couple of pattern repeats on the cuff in my lunchbreak today. Seaweed is a free pattern with a simple, easy to memorise lace chart and I'm knitting it out of a 75% Merino 20% Nylon 5% Stellina blend from Hand Dyed By Kate in the 'Midnight Sparkle' colourway. I'm very much enjoying the sparkle factor - this is the first time I've worked with a stellina blend and it's fun!

The Seaweed socks have replaced my handspun socks as take-along knitting, because the handspun socks are done! These were knit out of a 3ply yarn I spun from a BFL/Cashmere/Nylon blend by Jo of Lime Green Jelly. A simple toe up sock with a short row heel - I'm so pleased with how they turned out. I've only knit one pair of handspun socks before and these are a big improvement on them. I will definitely be spinning more yarn for socks in the future. Also! If you're interested in spinning sock yarn - The Knitmore Girls talked about it in their podcast this week - 'Episode 341 Monogam-ish'.

I also finished the Easy Peasy Newborn Hat I started last week, whilst waiting for a doctors appointment yesterday - so that's another hat for the collection. The E-P-N-H is a free pattern by Keri McKiernan and this one is knit out of leftover Manos Del Uruguay Alegria in colourway 'A8106'.

So as I mentioned at the top of the post, last Saturday was the start of Tour De Fleece (and also the Tour De France if you're interested in such things) and I have been spinning everyday this week and have remembered that I actually really like spinning and can't quite work out why I haven't done much of it recently... Anyway. I've spun a braid of Faux Cashmere (which I'm 99% sure is just a super fancy nylon fibre) by Spin City UK - pictured above - it's a 2ply and I got 126yds. It's incredibly soft - I've never spun actual cashmere so I can't say how it compares, but I do think it will have a lovely drape when knitted up. However, I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with it - the lack of elasticity won't make for a good hat and there's not really enough of it to do that much with, so it'll sit in the stash for a while I imagine.

I spun the second bobbin of my Taylor Made Yarns merino braid in 'Autumn Sunset' and 2plied it to get 212yds of a very barber poled yarn. Again, no idea what this is going to grow up to be. I really need to get some more inspiration for projects to knit out of handspun...

I clearly did a very poor job of evenly splitting the braid of my Taylor Made Yarns, as I had a whole chunk left on one bobbin, so I Navajo plied it to get another 40yds. I think it's fascinating to see how different the two yarns look when side by side. I think I might prefer the Navajo ply - so maybe I'll do that for the second of my Taylor Made Yarns braids...

Finally I spun up the Nunoco batt my mum bought me for Christmas - a Merino/Silk/Silk Noil blend called 'Wild Wood' - I split the batt and spun it up from light to dark, so when chain plied it should create a nice gradient. We shall see!

All in all, quite a productive week! I had a bit of a shoulder injury early in the week - too much spinning and not enough breaks I think - but I iced and rested and it feels fine now, which is a relief - it's Tour De Fleece after all, not Tour De Shoulder-Injury. I think I'm going to spend the rest of my evening making a start on plying the Nunoco singles, as I've yet to sit at my wheel today. I hope you have a fabulous weekend, whatever you've got planned. Mine will consist of working and car boot sales, so that'll keep me out of trouble!

♥

My Week In Pictures #6 - The one where I realise I cannot write these posts on a weekly basis...

 Heading to the beach for a swim to cool down after work.
 Visiting this lovely lady in London town for her birthday.

 Posing in cocktail bars.
 Actually drinking cocktails... (contrary to how often I photograph them, I don't actually drink all that many - they're just pretty!) Eating enormous desserts...

...and enormous baskets of chips. Essentially all I do when I'm in London is eat excessively!

So it's clear that I cannot post weekly photographic updates of my week - primarily because my weeks are often very similar from one to the next - same beach, different knitting, different food! Instead of My Week In Pictures, I'm probably going to post Lately In Pictures, whenever I have things I want to recap and share. I've been working a lot recently and retail isn't overly photogenic! Haha. Still, money is after all, money - and after five months of living with my family, it's really time I thought about what I want to do in the not-too-distant future. Small steps.

I'm going to spend the rest of the afternoon buried up to my elbows in yarn and fibre, to restore my equilibrium! (And to get a few more things to talk about in tomorrow's Fibre Friday post!)

♥

Tour De Fleece 2015 and a Stash Dash recap

 It's that time of year again - if you're a spinner, or you follow a spinner on instagram, you've probably stumbled across Tour De Fleece - the spinning event / spin-along that runs in tandem with the Tour De France. This is my second TDF and I don't take it as seriously as some - my goals are pretty loose. Lots of people use the time limit to spin for a sweater, or to spin a whole fleece, but my goal for this year is to spin every day. A straightforward goal, but I've got out of the habit of spinning recently and I miss it, so this is the perfect excuse to get back to it! I'm also looking at trying some new techniques too - I tend to stick to a short forward draw to create a worsted spun yarn and I think I'll pull out my copy of the Spinner's Book of Yarn Designs by Sarah Anderson and see what I can come up with.

Fibre wise, I'm going to be working out of my stash, starting with the selection pictured above. Working clockwise from the top - Some Chilean Corriedale that was a gift from my dear friend Nina, a 'Wild Wood' batt from Nunoco, a braid of Merino in 'Autumn Rainbow' by Taylor Made Yarns, some Faux Cashmere by Spin City UK and a Polwarth / Baby Alpaca / Nylon blend from Play Sweet Music.


 On to Stash Dash - which is separate from TDF purely because we're only one day into the tour and I haven't had a chance to ply anything yet! However, I have finished a few things in the past couple of weeks and I'm inching closer to my 5km goal.

Old Romance cardigan - 1360m
Lime Green Jelly BFL Cashmere Nylon 3ply - 370m (currently a work in progress pair of socks, not pictured above)
Tic-Tac-Toe-Up socks - 355.5m
Easy Peasy Newborn Hats x6 - 336m
Jaffa Cake socks - 310.5m
Katy's Birthday socks - 310.25m (a gift, not pictured above)
Rainbow Trekking socks - 284.75m
Mixed Lilacs hand-dyed merino 2ply - 237m
Simple Skyp socks - 220.5m

Total so far: 3745.5m

I'm currently working on two second socks and I have some singles that need plying, so I should hopefully cross the 4km mark in the next week or so. Are you taking part in the Tour De Fleece or Stash Dash? Or d'you prefer not to get involved in arbitrary challenges!? You know me, I love an arbitrary goal. Haha.

 ♥

Fibre Friday #21

It's been all about socks for me this week - it's been too hot to spin (my hands felt the fibre when they get too sweaty! haha) so I've been concentrating on knitting smaller projects…
 Firstly, I finished up my Simple Skyp Socks by Adrienne Ku out of Hedgehog Fibres in the 'Seaglass' colourway. I love these - they're so soft, the pattern held my interest and yet was easy enough to be carry along knitting and the colour is perfect. They're a little shorter than I usually knit my socks - but that's because my cast on was a little bit too tight to go any higher up on my calves (chubby legs for the win!) and I'd rather have short socks than socks that cut off my circulation. I think I'll try a tubular cast on for my next pair of top down socks.
Next up are the Budleigh socks by Rachel Coopey from her book Coop Knits Socks. The first sock is finished and I'm working on the ribbing for the second sock. I'm using Skein 'Top Draw' in the 'Blackcurrant' colourway. These are the most cabled socks I think I've ever knitted and it's the perfect antidote to all the vanilla socks I've been working on lately!

I also finished the first of my handspun socks out of a BFL/Nylon/Cashmere blend from Lime Green Jelly - who incidentally has some very pretty fibre in her etsy shop at the moment. Knitted toe up on 2mm (US 0) needles, with a short row heel - I'm so pleased with how the first one has turned out. I was initially concerned that I'd overplied the yarn - which I had - and I thought it'd be a little too ropey, but I think they'll be fine. I love the subtle striping of the colours - there will definitely be more handspun socks in my future!
Finally on the sock front, I cast on for a pair of Seaweed Socks which are a free pattern by Wendy D. Johnson - you can find it and a whole host of her other free patterns right here. These are being knit out of a 75% merino, 20% nylon, 5% stellina blend from Hand Dyed By Kate in the colourway 'Midnight Sparkle'. I'm not sure if she dyes repeatable colourways, but she does have a small selection of pretty yarns in her shop at the moment - I love stumbling across new UK based indie dyers - it's much more cost effective than constantly shipping in yarn from the States!

I also cast on and knit a very small amount on another Easy Peasy Newborn Hat by Keri McKeirnan out of leftovers from the socks I made my friend Katy for her birthday - Manos Del Uruguay Alegria in colourway 'A8106'.

It's been a long week over here and I'm more than ready for the weekend (and hopefully some cooler weather!).

♥