Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Mostly Spinning

We've had mild temperatures here but it's rather humid which is uncomfortable weather to be sitting with a lap full of knitted object. This weekend I spent more time spinning downstairs in the coolest room in the house.

I was anxious to see the finish yarn made from hand-dyed superwash merino that I baked in the oven a couple weeks ago. Plying this took me most of an afternoon. 486 yards
Blue hand-dyed Superwash Merino

This yarn hasn't decided what it wants to be: socks or the Morning Surf Scarf on the cover of Spin-Off

Next I started on a SeaWool fiber from Creativelydyed.
SeaWool roving

I believe it's 70% superwash Merino 30% Seacell fiber. It's so soft but the streaky part is lumpy to spin so I'm just going with it and letting the fiber dictate how it wants to be.
Sea Wool Singles

Bossy fiber isn't the only thing giving me problems.
bobbin problem
A couple of my bobbins have become so noisy (sort of a chattering sound) that I can't hear the TV!! The Photographer looked them over and found the bearings (I think he said bearings), the round rings on the ends, weren't round. He ordered some plastic rings to replace the not-round-brass-bearings. These are Kromski bobbins which all seem to make more noise than any of my Ashford bobbins. The newer bobbins seem to have been made with black plastic bearing rather than brass, maybe I'm not the only one with bobbins that talk back.

I did figure out how to do Judy's Magical Cast-on with no purl rows on the toe.
Look Ma, No Purls!
Judy's Magical Cast-on toe

My inside out Purl problem was answered by someone on The Knitlist. She said I was flipping my work over rather than turning it around to get to the second needle. She suggested I put a marker on the right side before I started knitting to remind myself which was the knit side of the work. Now I wonder how I ever had such a problem.

I came across a pattern on Ravely that's calling to me!
curlicue
I'm trying to talk myself out of ANOTHER project...

2 comments:

LaurieM said...

That is a beautiful version of that pattern. I remember reading Grumperina while she was working on this same pattern and she had great difficulty getting it to lie flat. Others on ravelry seem to have the same problem. This rendition is really marvelous.

Congrats on your toe! I can never help with problems like that because I can't imagine how someone gets it wrong. I would never thought of flipping rather than turning.

Sheena said...

I love that pattern. I just read your blog, and you have already added a new thing in just minutes. I'm working at the race track and knitting socks in my spare time. It looks like it would be addictive like the mitered square.