If you’ve ever wondered where that cold went, the one you had when you were a child, the one that moved from your throat to your lungs to your head and gave you nights that lasted an aeon because you couldn’t breathe and your throat hurt, and then you had to cough and you realised that your throat really hadn’t been hurting at all, because the cough made it hurt so much more… I’ve got it. I’m winning the battle, but the end is some distance yet.

So, instead of working – I just can’t think clearly when my brain is starved of oxygen – and going to the gym, I have been spinning. It’s almost exercise, right? My feet are moving. The ounce of pygora cloud from Terry at Rainbow Yarns Northwest I posted about some time back has become this:
That’s 120m of soft, shiny thickish laceweight. Four ounces of the premium dark grey roving (70% pygora, 30% merino) became 411m of slightly thicker laceweight:
Spinning these two yarns was another of those learning experiences. Spun a sort of backward supported longdraw (fibre in my left hand drawing back as the twist enters it while my right hand pinches to stop twist now and then to allow the developing singles to thin as my left hand moves back), the cloud almost spun itself; the smooth glossy fibres just slipped neatly together to become the singles.

The grey was different. Very different. There’s been some discussion of the difference between roving and top on the Ravelry groups, made more complex by the difference between UK and US terminology. This was roving in the US sense: basically a carded prep in which the fibres are only roughly parallel to one another, and may be of different lengths. (If combed, this roving becomes top in which all the fibres are truly parallel and are generally of more uniform length.) The Merino in the roving adds elasticity and bounce, and flows differently into the singles. I tried to match the WPI of the stuff I got from the cloud, but found it difficult as this really did want to be a thicker yarn, plus it bloomed beautifully after washing and whacking. The end result is a little thicker, but not badly so and I think the two together will be a top-down triangular shawl, dark grey with a white strip of finer lace (I’m thinking something Estonian with nupps) about 2/3 of the way down.

I’ve just started the last of the stuff from Terry, a beautiful blue 80% pygora/20% silk batt. To prolong the pleasure (I really do like this pygora stuff) I’ve decided to spin it as thin as I can.
It’s perhaps a little thinner than it looks there, although I do have small fingers :-) It’s 60-65wpi. I wonder how much yarn I’ll get out of 2.4oz?
What you can’t see (well, you can, but it’s not obvious) is that I’m spinning that on the high-speed bobbin and the high-speed whorl that I bought last week for the Schacht. Not the highest high-speed bobbin, but it’s faster than the fastest shipped with the wheel. I’m getting better at this.

There’s also been knitting. The Tuesday Spinners and Cake-eaters are running an optional group project this year: knit a Swallowtail Shawl (pattern available free here). Some members have never knitted lace before, so even in purchased yarn this is a challenge. Others are spinning the yarn as well. In one of my dyeing experiments I painted a 1oz braid of tussah a beautiful dark plum colour, thinking it would do nicely for the shawl. I rinsed it thoroughly, dried it and spun it to roughly the same wpi as the marisilk/seasilk I’d used for my first Swallowtail. When I washed the yarn in Dreft (a detergent)… it bled. It bled to the point that it became a pale grey-blue skein of silk: it lost ALL the red. I was horrified. Worse, I’d not got quite enough length from the braid, so I needed more. I spun another 30g and spent several hours researching silk dyeing online. Recommendations included soaking even longer than overnight; treating all silk to remove sericin before dyeing; using higher concentrations of dye and pure vinegar, not water, to dilute it; heating for longer and allowing the silk to cool in the dye overnight. I took the new skein and the old skein and did all of it. This time I used a dyebath instead of handpainting, and it was thrilling to watch the colour density of the liquid decrease as the silk took the colour. The end result is two skeins of red silk, one very slightly darker than the other. I’d hoped for scarlet (that’s what the test paper showed), but it’s a blood red, the red of beef cooked ‘blue’. I decided to use the variation in colour as a design feature, changing colour at the start of the lily of the valley pattern, which is where I am now:
The difference is more subtle than I’d expected, so I’m glad the change in pattern highlights it. I wanted to learn something else new from this, so I’ve taken the opportunity to try beading using a crochet hook (8/0 beads and a 0.6mm hook). It’s easier than I’d imagined and quite effective although I’m not sure I’ll wear it. Next decision comes at the end of the second LoV repeat: I want to go back to the darker red. I could just finish the shawl in it, or perhaps not – I’m not sure there’s enough. I am tempted to add a single repeat of another Estonian lace pattern, then revert to the brighter red for the edging. Decisions, decisions.

Truly, I do.
As a knitter I honestly never thought about the number of plies/strands in whatever I was knitting, except perhaps as a measure of thickness. Laceweight had two plies because two plies are thinner than three plies of a given thickness. Obvious, innit? Other yarns? I am slightly embarrassed to realise I never thought about it. Colour, fibre, softness, weight, gauge, price? Of course. Structure? Why? Does it matter?

Thanks to Ravelry and spinning, I know it can matter a lot, enough to make a major difference to a project. Laceweight is 2-ply not just because it’s thin, but because 2-ply is oval in cross-section. Add more plies, and the yarn gets rounder in cross-section, which means it fills in the holes in lace somewhat. Make it superwash and bouncy as well as round and I now realise why the shawl I started in Dream in Color Smooshy (a four-ply) was so… not right somehow that I frogged it. Three plies are stronger than two, too: for a given fibre/spinning technique, three plies will wear better. My first sock yarn was a 2-ply, and I knew the first time I put those socks on that it wasn’t right. Now I know 3-ply would have been rounder, bouncier, more elastic underfoot… and slower to develop holes.

I think most spinners start with 2-ply because it’s obvious, easy and FAST. Two bobbins/spindles/whathaveyou and you can make Real Yarn! Quite a lot of my handspun to date was 2-ply for just those reasons. Then I was shown the wonder that is chain-plying aka Navajo-plying (it’s best to call it chain plying because it’s really not widely used by the Navajo weavers: they make small quantities for very specific purposes). I diligently chained myself to the wheel (ha!), frantically trying to breathe as well as coordinate the hand movements. (I’ve since learned that many people chain a bobbin-full to add twist later). I didn’t like what I got. I knew the uneven twist and the indecently variable loop lengths would improve with practice, but the way that it emphasised unevennesses in the singles (it concentrates thickness as well as colour) was integral to the technique. And the little lumps at the start/end of each loop were unsightly. In discussions on Ravelry people have also pointed out that a chained 3-ply is just ONE singles looped back on itself. Any damage to that one singles means the yarn will lose its structural integrity. It can (apparently) unwork itself. Whereas a true 3-ply is THREE singles. Damage one of them and the other two can take the strain. More importantly for me, at any rate, true 3-ply nicely averages varying singles thicknesses instead of emphasising them, and breaks/blends colours more subtly than even a 2-ply. So I tried real 3-ply and fell in love. I can live with weighing my fibre into three lots, and the need to use three bobbins (in fact I bought extra bobbins just in case).

This was my first 3-ply:
That’s about 500m (my longest spinning project to date!!), a wool/silk/alpaca blend that I think I bought from Fyberspates at Alexandra Palace 2? 3? years ago. It’s a bit wonky because I waited too long to spin it (I’ve learned the hard way that prepared fibres will settle/mat/gently adhere to each other as time passes), and I split it by fibre as well as weight: the alpaca did not draft as easily as the wool/silk, and it’s less elastic so it remains the same length where the wool/silk has bounced back to its original fibre lengths. Let me know if that makes no sense and I’ll try to explain it more clearly.

My favourites, though, are those in the first photo. Top is superwash BFL from The Natural Dye Studio, spun within a month of purchase. Schacht, Scotch Tension. Below is a wool/silk/angora blend in Red Maple from The Woolen Rabbit that has been sitting in a box with other stuff ‘to be spun when I’m good enough’ since I bought it over 2 years ago. It too had compacted; the difficulty I had drafting it plus the fact that it’s my first double drive project means the singles were slightly overspun. I should, I really should have thought to run them back through the wheel to lose some twist but for some reason I didn’t think of it even as I muttered about the twist in the singles. So the final yarn is not quite as lofty and soft as I’d hoped. I’m telling myself that means it will wear well as a pair of fingerless mitts.

Here’s the next spinning project for the Schacht:
That, my friends, is an ounce of Pygora from Terry of Rainbow Yarns Northwest. It’s as soft as a very soft thing (I’ve only spotted about 5 guard hairs in a handful of soft) and it has this amazing sheen. Think mohair x cashmere. I hope I can do it justice.

And the 2009 Rampton Project means I’m going to do some more dyeing. I need silk noil to card into my blends… there’s another post. I can boast, er, talk about colour blending on hand cards.

I was talking with friends last week about the sorrows and pleasures of growing old, and the speed with which days, weeks, even months just fly past in a flurry of notes about stuff you should have done. One commented that she thought time moved more quickly in part because often we’re repeating experiences or applying knowledge from previous experience: we don’t have to spend time concentrating as we learn new stuff. I raised an eyebrow, grinned, and pointed out that I have at least one lifetime’s-worth of new stuff to learn about spinning before I die. And there’s the dyeing, and weaving, and the history of all these crafts. My teeth are bared in a grin of ferocious pleasure as I contemplate the vast amount of stuff I have yet to learn.

On the long, long list: how to get really deep intense colours on silk. These are my best results so far.

It’s very nearly 12 months since I last posted. A year in which I’ve done a lot, learned a lot, and (best of all) learned something of how much more there is for me to learn. I feel as though I’ve been gathering pretty pebbles as I walk along the edge of the sea. Now I have a double handful of beautiful stones and it’s time to start setting them into patterns to see what they mean to me, and might mean to others. Over the last month or two I’ve found I really miss the chance to write, or rather, I now desire the discipline of setting my thoughts in order to consider and communicate ideas.

I started this blog to document a journey into weaving, which rapidly became a rediscovery of knitting, and then an exploration of spinning. I blame Ravelry, where as sarahw I’ve met an incredible number of inspiring and helpful people and I think I’ve done my share of enabling and aspinnerating, too. I’ve accomplished quite a lot of spinning (I confess I want to show off some of the results!), which, together with discussions with Abby Franquemont and many others led me to think about the origins of this craft. It’s more ancient than you might think; after all, how long have we been wearing clothes? And now I wonder how the lives of my female ancestors changed as society changed, as technology changed. I have done some reading, I will be doing more, and I will try to record my discoveries and thoughts here.

I’m not just travelling through time and fibre. There are real-life journeys, too. In May 2008 he and I walked the West Highland Way, 95 miles from Milngavie on the outskirts of Glasgow to Fort William. Our first true backpacking experience, carrying everything we needed for 8 days on our backs. We finished in 5 1/2 days – not bad for two ageing flatlanders – and it was quite literally a life-changing experience. We’re going on more long walks for as long as our knees will allow. I’ll share some of that first walk with the world soon. For the moment, some spinning:

This is tussah silk 2-ply, spun on my new friend: last month I traded in the Louet Victoria for a Majacraft Suzie Pro. I still have the Schacht Matchless DT (shameful, I know). Both are lifetime wheels, but so different! If the Schacht was a car it would be a Mercedes-Benz. A big one. Beautifully sprung, no road or engine noise, effortlessly eating the motorway miles. The Suzie Pro is a roadster. It goes fast; if it had wheels it would corner like a demon. I love them both. In April I may have a problem, but I’ll reveal that when the time comes. Anyway, back to the silk…

not only handspun, but hand-dyed. Yes, my name is Sarah and I already have a problem. Despite wearing only sludge colours, I cannot resist playing with REAL colour. This entire spinning lark started because I wanted to spin barberpole sock yarn, and look where that’s got me. A box full of Russell Dyes (I love the colours), a bag of Jacquard dyes arrived last week. I have indigo, weld, madder. Over the summer I collected urine and managed to persuade a traditional sig vat to dye some merino blue; I’ll tell you about that too, sometime. Or if we have a proper summer this year I’ll do another one!

That’s roughly 450m, which is destined to become a Swallowtail Shawl for the local spinning group challenge. Which is my fault: my lace-knitting proved contagious!

Would you like to see more?

This is a curiosity, a Christmas gift spun for a friend It’s 50% undercoat from her semi-longhair cat, 30% merino and 20% silk. A cabled 4-ply, my first serious exercise in yarn engineering. Cat is soft but completely lacks elasticity (hence the merino) and is completely dull (hence the silk). Cabled 4-ply to reduce shedding of shorter hairs.

This always takes longer than I expect. I’ve got to go and light the fire in the front room and prepare for an evening of knitting late Christmas presents! I’ll be back…

I’ve had email asking how I am, and Sue (go and look at the sideways truck! You have to be Well Hard to live on a hill :-) awarded me this when what I really needed was a swift kick to remind me that there’s a world out there. Or
is that ‘in here’? No excuses, just apologies and a brief explanation: this is the start of my
busiest time of year. Starting in mid-December, a goodly proportion of the people whose funding proposals were accepted last spring started to realise that they haven’t spent it yet. And if they don’t submit invoices with a ‘what we did with your money’ report, they’ll lose the funding and their reputations will suffer. No gold stars for them. So I get email messages and phone calls pleading with me to stretch my time like a rubber band to add just one more thing to be done, invoiced and in place by the end of March. What it is to be popular. It’s made more difficult because most of my long-term clients have become my friends, so I can’t let them down. I just… can’t. So gold stars in lieu of spare time for me. Knitting has become a bit, um, the word is probably ‘frenzied’. I think I’m working my stress into stitches, which is doing my arm muscles no good at all: my forearms ache with tension, and the combination of keyboarding and knitting leaves me feeling like a praying mantis as I try to unfold my elbows. Fortunately for my husband the resemblance ends there.

Frantic knitting. Let’s see. Those mittens for my sister are now on her hands, together with the IMMENSE mittens required to fit my brother-in-law’s hands.

That’s my hand for scale. Apparently he’s thrilled: they’re the first pair of mittens he’s had that fit his adult hands. I cannot recommend Leena‘s mitten kits too highly. The designs are pretty, the Finn wool is soft, sheepy and wonderful, and the natural dyes are beautiful beyond words. And she’s incredibly helpful, too. When I said J’s hands were immense she promised I wouldn’t run out of yarn – and I didn’t. In fact from these two pairs (and a third I haven’t started yet because I’ve gone off mittens for the moment) I’ll probably have enough lovely wool left to make a pair of fingerless gloves for me. Not much dark brown left, though. Note that the red dye hasn’t run/stained the white, it’s just a halo of soft red wool fibre and my poor photography.

What else? Spinning, of course. I present to you another small step up the steep hill that is my perception of navajo plying.
Such honesty. OK, I’ve used a GOOD strand on the penny, but you can see the others where my need to breathe over-rode my ability to coordinate hands and feet. I wonder if I can add twist as I knit those bits? But still I regard this as a triumph. It’s soft, people. Not wiry at all. And that’s 273 metres! I’ve got at least another 7-800m at this rate. What will I do with it? I’ve discovered my default answer is ‘shawl/scarf’, which bothers me a bit. On the other hand a friend needs a comfort shawl right now, and if I had a stock I’d have one to give her so I wouldn’t have to agonise about how to find the time to knit one. Unfortunately neither of my two would be right.

Nor would this, even if it was likely to be finished in the near future:
That’s the first repeat plus a bit of the Faux Russian Shawl from Folk Shawls, in Posh Yarn Eva 2-ply. It’s a cashmere/silk blend that’s as soft as soft can be, in a dusty blue shot with faded green. It’s also the first shawl that has forced me to use a lifeline: for some reason I found the first repeat of this pattern very difficult to work. I don’t mind the odd half-hour spent dropping a stitch or three to make a correction, but I lost two hours re-working about 60 stitches. That’s not entirely the shawl’s fault, of course. I might have been a little foolish to attempt to drink wine and watch TV while knitting. The most useful thing was probably my decision to attack the photocopied pattern with coloured pencils to mark the centre line of the main pattern elements as well as every 10th stitch. I now have markers (see them glinting?) to match the pencil lines, so I know immediately if something’s awry. Although I do have to shift most markers one stitch on every pattern row, this is still faster than ripping back. And I think the end result is worth it, even unblocked.

There’s some frantic knitting that I haven’t photographed yet. I desperately want to cast on for another, simpler shawl, but I NEED sweaters. It’s cold here. I can knit sweaters, I am a reasoning, reasonably intelligent adult. I can do this. I just have to start. So I started. I’ve got gauge and have done about 2″ of the sleeves (two at once, magic loop) for Autumn Rose (link chosen at random from the many). Ravelry has proven its use once again: someone roughly my bust size has confirmed that the 37″ will fit nicely with an inch of negative ease. So, be bold, be bold… but not too bold. I must check my gauge regularly!

And more spinning, on the spindle this time.

some of which I sampled (the colour’s more accurate below):
Top, Andean 2-ply; bottom, the singles. This is most of one of four Mermaid batts from Squoosh. Two or three blue/green wools carded with white silk, the exact colours of a small bay with a white shell-sand beach on the west coast of Scotland… and in my memory. I am trying to spin a soft singles that is consistently thicker than the thin one my hands want to make, which is difficult. I read recently that once you’ve got the hang of spinning it’s easier to spin thin than thick, and I believe it. Periodically there’s a little lump of wool that won’t draft and passes into the singles to become a textured heathery lump in the yarn, easily seen in the 2-ply sample. Question is, what am I going to do with this? ‘Soft’ is successful: this is a lovely squozeable yarn, far too soft for socks (my first thought). The heathery 2-ply would be a good sweater fabric, but there won’t be enough for that. It’s 4.75 oz of fibre. I could knit a comfort shawl with it, something like the Wool Peddler’s Shawl would work well. I could save it to combine with something else. I think (what do you think?) I’d be justified in using the singles for lace; the lumps just seem to add character if I use a relatively simple textured stitch such as fir cone. Gah. I’m astonished at how annoyed and frustrated I am, just because I don’t know what to do with this pretty yarn. That’s not what spinning is for!

Other frantic things you can’t see because I won’t show them. nyah, nyah. Such as the pile of stuff to be thrown away. I find that when I am truly stressed I still procrastinate, but in ways that reveal the depths of my desperation. I clear shelves, I throw masses of stuff away, hoping perhaps to find some spare time at the bottom of that box of archive images cut from magazines in the days before the internet put entire image libraries at my fingertips. I acknowledge I’m never going to have more than a passing interest in calligraphy, so those photocopied samples of fabulous handwriting can be recycled. My notes for the ‘Become Addicted to Landscape History through Hedgerow Dating‘ courses I taught 10 years ago are surplus to requirements: the space is needed for my fibre stash. I haven’t found a cache of spare time (why didn’t I put some aside when I was 11 and bored during the endless hot summer holiday?) but I do feel a little lighter and more cheerful as I acknowledge that there are many things I once did that no longer interest me, and others I planned to do that are unlikely to be as absorbing as the many challenges and friends I’ve found in fibre.

Not merry, because that would require too much energy :-) Anyway I’m better at spinning, knitting and reading than merrymaking, and I’d back him at sitting and reading or watching TV against anyone else in the world. So I splurged and ordered a roast from my favourite butcher (in Ludlow, halfway across Britain. My environmentalist halo is sadly askew), bought several bottles of good wine during the usual shop on Friday morning, then pulled the bedcovers over the house and settled in for some self-indulgence. The international phone lines grew hot yesterday as we chatted with far-flung relatives before eating just a fraction too much Festive Food. We’ve established our own traditions over the decade in which we’ve had the Christmas break to ourselves, including a rather eclectic dinner consisting of most of our favourite things. Not many gifts because he’s already got his bike and I’ve already got my Schacht :-) <— That's a huge grin, by the way. I LOVE this wheel. I'm just glad it's my second wheel, because if I'd learned on it I can't imagine settling for anything less. As it is I am already familiar with the Louet Victoria, it's allowed to flex and creak because it's a travelling wheel. The Schacht is solid, smooth, almost noiseless, and it loves to spin.

It lives upstairs only because there’s so little room in our front room. So on weekends I line up my favourite podcasts (usually about hiking in the UK and US), turn my computer chair from the monitor to the wheel and just… go. I’m currently spinning what I thought was merino/silk bought from Fyberspates at Alexandra Palace but I think the chap misidentified it, as there are intermittent lengths of alpaca. It’s spinning quite well regardless, and I may just try navajo plying it to preserve the colour variations, which are gorgeous.

I’ve just tied my first drive band, too. I searched online for cones or long lengths of appropriate string until I found a blog mentioning that Alden Amos uses string bought from a grocery chain store. So I went for a little one-upmanship by plying some linen from the weaving stash into something of the right thickness, then abusing it a bit until it softened. I don’t know if this was a good idea, but it’s working! I’ve just re-read this and, realising that a year ago I didn’t have a spinning wheel, scarcely dared ply the peculiar stuff of my drop spindle… I’m impressed. By what I’ve achieved, but more because thanks to the Internet I know that these achievements have been duplicated or surpassed by many people. Because other people are able to pass on their knowledge and experience via the Internet. It’s an amazing world. Thanks, Joanne!

Knitting has made my relative’s lives easier, not just because they get hand-knits, but because it’s easy to buy yarn. My sister has excellent taste.
The Inca will probably go back to her as a scarf – it’s too warm for England. The Fleece Artist Novasomo seems to be a Somoko version of Nova and will be socks. Of course :-)
In return she and my brother-in-law received a pair of socks each. I sent my brother a sweater knit from an old Rowan pattern, plus a pair of Dashing in Cascade 220. Very fast knit, I just hope they fit. My mother traditionally receives a large box of exceedingly English chocolates, puddings, cakes and so forth.

Alas, my sister actually asked for mittens, but too late for me to knit them in time for Christmas. With over a metre of snow in the last three weeks I think they’ll be needing mittens for some time yet! If they get mittens my brother should have mitten, too, so that’s three pairs. I’ve never knitted mittens, but Leena’s blog has delighted me for some time. And she sells mitten kits, traditional Finnish designs using wool she’s dyed with natural dyestuffs. They look wonderful online and even better in the hand. The wool is softish but sturdy and the colours are stunning. Here’s the first pair. I’ve been bold and altered the thumb pattern to stripes just because I love multi-colour stripes.

My brother-in-law should be worried: his feet are so large that I ran out of yarn before the socks were his preferred length. My husband suggested lace as a solution; my first thought was of stripes and contrasting heels and toes. I plan to knit him socks he can’t wear to work :-)

My husband would say so. But what I mean is that I should post more often. All across knitting blogland people are saying the same thing, so it’s contagious or seasonal. Knitting gifts takes time. And bits of that cold are still, STILL lingering. I’ve had a mild sore throat for three weeks now, and at the gym or Pilates all my energy runs away, like water down a drain, about 45 minutes into the session leaving me cold, breathless and struggling just as we approach the most strenuous bit of the workout. It’s better than it was, though. I keep telling myself that.

Look, finished knitting! (Note: the colour values in most of these photos are bad even though I’ve tried to correct them. ’tis the season of bad light.)
These are gift socks for someone with smaller feet than mine, so my hand does the modelling to show the River Rapids lace pattern from Sockbug. Copper Rose merino/tencel sock yarn from the Woolen Rabbit, toe-up on 2mm needles. The lace pattern is both easily memorised and easily worked out from what you’ve already knitted, so this is an ideal travelling sock pattern.

More finished knitting!!
Knot a Knitted Paper Bag, pattern by Setsuko Torii in Interweave Knits Summer 2004. This picture is to show that it does work as a moderately large shapeless bag, and that I’m much, much taller than you thought. The yarns were chosen from Habu’s stock at Alexandra Palace in October: they only had enough of the paper moire in these colours, so mine is a bit more mottled than the original. I like it now and may end up liking it even more: the shapelessness is ineffably elegant, quintessentially Japanese, and it will look marvellous with jeans and the right top. I think I have a few right tops :-)
I used it yesterday as a carry-all for spinning night. The plastic bag visible above contains the fibre shown here, spread over what I laughably think of as a desk.
That’s the stuff I was spinning as I sat by the sea in Scotland in July. I haven’t had the heart to spin more of it yet, but I decided to at least find out if the singles were what I’d intended.
That’s a UK 5p, which is roughly the same size as a US dime. Looking at the photo now I feel justified in mentioning that the singles on the spindle are about the same thickness as those in the mini-skein, they just look larger because they’re closer to the camera! The skeins have been washed and prepped, and I’ll knit samples from them later. The 2-py is as near as anything the 2-ply that I dreamed of making from this fibre, which will be something warm and lacy. I hadn’t thought of using the singles, but they’re surprisingly even and I’ve just read a comment that a singles may work very well in lace as the twist is often controlled by the combination of different stitch types. So I’ll see what that looks like. What interested me most was the way in which these two skeins show how the twist of the singles is partly undone by plying: the 2-ply is beautifully soft and loose. Important lesson learned!

I’m being reminded of another lesson even as I type: stuff I don’t want to do takes longer to accomplish.

Caution: depressing thought ahead!
Most of my interpretive work deals with sites of natural history or archaeological interest, but an acquaintance persuaded me (aka twisted both my arms) to produce some panels about a WWII airfield. The airfield itself is scarcely visible today, having been sold as farmland in the early 1960s, but many of the buildings associated with it survive in the surrounding countryside and the village wants to be sure residents understand this bit of their history. Now, I knew a little about Britain and WWII but not enough to draft anything explaining the significance of this particular airfield, so I’ve been researching it. Britain was not ready for a war in the air in 1939: they’d only realised Germany was a threat in the early 1930s; prior to that they were preparing to fight France. Again. This was one of many airfields hastily constructed in 1940, where those who’d learnt to fly – in 10 weeks – were taught to fly bombers. And here’s where my nebulous general reluctance begins to crystallise, because I now know that the type-written text of the original displays glossed over the facts of WWII. “Bomber Command suffered the heaviest losses of any British unit in the Second World War. Roughly 12,000 aircraft were lost and 55,500 aircrew died: almost 60% of all those who served were killed.” Six out of every ten of the smiling faces in the photographs I’ve been leafing through. I can’t gloss over this, and I can’t forget it. In my draft the quoted text sits baldly under a photo of young men (and a few young women) in the airfield News Room. And, as I struggle to sort out the rest of the panels, I find myself thinking how different this world might have been if so many young men – of any nationality – with ideals and a clear sense of right and wrong had not died in the two Great Wars.

So there I was at the beginning of last week, ensconced in my corner of the couch, virtually surrounded by yarn and knitting books, almost enjoying my cold. I had the projects I was knitting, alternating hard and easy, I had the radio, books to read, with hot chocolate or a quick hit from New Style of Heirloom Knitting when I needed a bit of excitement. I’d been looking for a copy of that ever since I saw the Mondnacht Shawl (3rd down on the right on the link above), and recently found it at the NeedleArts Bookshop. I’d had a couple of accidents at Colourmart, one as soon as I had the Mondnacht pattern in my hot little hands and the second being the direct result of his standing over me chanting “Go on, buy it” while I was gazing longingly at this, which I’ll discuss another time.

The Great Cashmere/Silk Invasion of Nov ’07. Each of those cones is 2500 yds.
The angels have the phone box? Ha. The yarn has my living room.

I was set, with a long list of projects to look forward to. Then I checked my email and found my sister’s reply to the perennial “Any idea what you’d like for Christmas?”. I’d sent a scarf and one of the Kiris in the Christmas box last year and heard nothing, so I’d filed knitted items under ‘possibly inappropriate’. I was therefore a bit stunned to read that she still loves her socks and he cherishes his scarf, and did I ever knit mittens? Perhaps they’d felt that asking for knitwear was too… forward? Pushy? Perhaps I should just be more generous. After all, I LIKE knitting. I think I’m becoming a process knitter. And what does a knitted gift tell the recipient? It says “I care enough for you that I spend time, precious irretrievable seconds, minutes, hours of my life making stuff for you.” Even if the recipient doesn’t get that message (I know some people don’t), the important thing is that you’ve said it. I went back downstairs, pulled back the curtains of my mind, and looked hard at what I was knitting and what I planned to knit. The travelling socks will be a gift, but I haven’t been rushing it; I’d cast on the handspun for socks for himself. Other than that? All for me. My conscience stood up and kicked me, hard. There are many patterns I’ve looked at and thought: interesting, but I’d never wear it. Gloves, scarves, winter hats. Mittens. How self-centred I’ve been. I am. I will not be.

I’m set, with a long list of projects to look forward to. And none are for me until I finish and post some gifts.

Because I’ve finished the Gairloch Socks!

Based on a traditional pattern from Gairloch, Scotland. Inspired by a dream, knitted in Wollmeise sockyarn, Indisch Rot and Gewitterhimmel. Sole on 2mm, instep/leg 2.5mm, 68st circumference. This is my second stranded knitting project and the first where fit really matters. And they’re nearly too small: I hadn’t realised how much the stranding reduces the elasticity of the fabric, and I hadn’t considered the bulk that stranding adds to the fabric. I must remember to add c. 6st to the circumference to allow for these factors. The colours are roughly accurate on my monitor: these socks are bright!

His handspun socks await the end of Christmas Knitting (he already has socks). Instead we have:

Sockbug’s River Rapids socks in Woolen Rabbit ‘Copper Rose’ Merino/Tencel, (2mm sole and instep) followed by Dream in Colour, sorry, Color Smooshy in Blue Lagoon 2mm sole, 2.5mm instep. Simple 2×2 rib on the instep, but I may do something silly with it on the leg. Drunken cables? And perhaps some ornate ribbing. This is an amazing book!

I also have yarn and patterns for mittens and, if time, hand- and arm-warmers for all and sundry.

Wing o’ the Moth is my reward for knitting a minimum of 1.5″ of sock.
Fiddlesticks (Jaggerspun) Zephyr in Sage, on 3.5mm needles so I’ve added two pattern repeats to Chart A and some messing about in the reverse stockinette band to give me an extra repeat of Chart B. This is a nice yarn, warm, bouncy, light glinting on the silk, but it feels a bit… dead? in the hand. I think washing may help.

And, because my self-control occasionally fails, I have this:
That’s a swatch for Mondnacht. Colourmart 65%cash/35%silk, 3/45NM ‘ancient green’ on 3mm needles (the recommended Japanese size is c. 3.3mm), before washing. I think this yarn is finer than the recommended, but coned yarns are lightly oiled so it may bloom when washed. But I think I’ll go down to 2.5mm for this. Would you believe me if I told you I find it incredibly exciting? Ah, you think I should get out more :-)

Perhaps you’ll find this exciting.
Buying stuff online is a bit of a lottery as regards colour. I usually win, especially with Lisa Souza, but ‘Sea Glass’ proved much brighter and more blue-green than I’d expected. Originally intended for the Moth, it sat in the stash for over a year. Each time I saw it I measured my desire to over-dye it against my abysmal ignorance of dyeing and then, last month, I had a brainwave. Dee’s colours are amazing. Why not ask if she’d do it? She said yes. I sent a long list of the colours I’d loved (a list I didn’t like would have been shorter). The end result is utterly gorgeous. It’s purple and plum and grey with touches of bronze. It’s the colour of heather and gritstone and storm. It’s going to be a Kimono Shawl (I think). When I finish the Christmas knitting.

I still have the cold. It’s just sniffles and a minor sore throat now, but still… THREE WEEKS.

If you’ve read this far, here’s your reward

We Three

Go, enjoy.

* As in ‘unallocated to another project’. To be fair I have to add that qualification.

The kind that affects my head and throat, not cryptographers. It’s not really that bad yet, but he had it last week so I know it WILL be. So I’m getting things done while I have the energy. I’ve done the shopping, stocked up on soup and the ingredients for soup, and stuff that will become a giant vat of stew so I can say “Never mind me, leave me to die here, there’s stew in the refridgerator for your dinner”. Nobly. You know :-)

There’s also some knitting! First, Teyani was right (how could she not be, she dyed this stuff): the Chain of Fools 2-ply bloomed beautifully after washing and some serious whacking on the table. It’s gorgeous.

It’s soft and bouncy. And [blush] one of the senior Tuesday spinners looked at it wistfully and said she’d never been able to spin sock yarn like that, soft but with enough twist that it should wear well. I’m so proud! In my head my feet were dancing in my first pair of socks from my own handspun… then I realised he was actually looking at the finished yarn with more than interest. Intent, that’s what it was. He’s been showing interest all the way through, and I recognised the difference. “Do you want a pair of socks that look like this?” “Yes please”. *sigh* Fortunately 8 oz of fibre yields a lot of 2-ply. I think there’s enough for both of us. Thanks, Teyani!

But no more socks until these are finished (I’m on the ribbing). Here’s a preview:

I love the back. I need to knit striped socks with garter stitch heels and toes.

And there’s spinning. Never a dull moment, even when it’s black and grey.

That’s a UK 5p piece, which is about the same size as a US dime. And I’m sitting here grinning at that picture of my alpaca singles, just as I did when I started spinning the fibre. Which looks like this:
The mostly black with some grey/white is an alpaca batt (I think that’s the right term) purchased with the express intention of spinning lace at Woolfest from Norweft Alpacas. Lying on it is some hand-dyed silk top I fell for at Alexandra Palace. I saw it gleaming in the light and instantly thought of it glinting in the depths of the alpaca. It’s interesting spinning, though: the strands are about 2′ long and even after a lot of pre-drafting I couldn’t persuade it to spin on the wheel, although the drop spindle deals with it easily. I have to evaluate my technique for this. Anyway. Here’s the result of my experimentation:

Now, first of all I’m intrigued by the fact that this spinning lark has made me come over all scientific. On the card from left to right are freshly-spun singles, the singles plied back on itself, followed by the singles plied with the silk. Followed by notes on supplier and treadling during plying. I honestly didn’t expect I’d have the patience for this sort of thing. I must want to be good at it :-) The mini-skein of the finished yarn IS soft; I was worried that I’d put too much twist into the singles, even though I had planned to run the entire contents of the bobbin counter-clockwise to another bobbin before plying, just to even the twist a bit, after watching the twist move on the yarn while taking a singles off a spindle. That’s about 4m of the alpaca 2-ply entwined with 2m of the silk/alpaca blend, which seems about right: you may not be able to see it in the photo, but the silk catches the light occasionally, subtly. I was carrying the mini-skein around the house making excited noises when he asked what I was going to do with it. “Make lace” “Will you have enough?” I did some calculations. The 2-ply is about the same weight as Zephyr, perhaps a bit finer. I’ve got 250g of the alpaca. Yes, I’ll have enough. I think I’ve got enough for about 5,000 yards of singles, 2,500 yds of 2-ply. Will I live that long? Who knows.

Lest you think he has no fun:
On Wednesday he collected his new bike (as in cycle). He’s increasingly enthusiastic about cycling, clocking up 50+ miles per day on weekends and holidays in less than 3 hours, planning routes ever further afield. Our 10-speed tourers were good lightweight bikes when we bought them 25 years ago, but they’re antiques now. Technology has moved on. For months I watched him poring over the specs of today’s equivalents or watching other cyclists. Eventually I pointed out that even an expensive road bike was a lot cheaper than most mid-life crises I’d read of: he should just buy one. I cherish the memory of his grin :-) The above was my attempt to preserve for posterity his first ride on his Scott CR1 Pro. He’s too fast for the camera now!

So. I’m probably going to have a cold. I’ll just have to make the best of it.
Which means sitting on the couch drinking hot liquid and knitting. Finish the Gairloch Socks, start the Chain of Fools for him. Play with New Pathways for Sock Knitters. And there’s always Autumn Rose. I have the needles, the wool, the pattern; I just needed the time. I’m smiling again!

Now you see it.
Spinning wheel and lazy kate as I left them Sunday afternoon when the oven timer pinged to say my afternoon was over. I didn’t even fill the bobbin! Note the chair pointing sternly, steadfastly toward work as it has all Monday morning.

Aaannnnnnd…

Now you don’t.
The results of my visit to the Knitting & Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace last Thursday.

I prepared properly by assembling a train timetable, packing lunch, collecting phone numbers for people I’d be meeting. I was told in no uncertain terms to buy spinning fibre to use on the new wheel (he decided to order the Schacht but it hasn’t yet shipped), so I added this to the shopping list. I remembered to take the shopping list.

I made a strong start: I was one of the first people at Habu, so was able to collect everything on my list. I admit it was a long list, but no UK store stocks that variety of their yarns. Then I went *straight* to Jamieson’s of Shetland for the Autumn Rose kit I’d been coveting since Eunny blogged about its creation. Then I just had time to gulp some water and buy 2 lengths of charcoal/bronze/grey silk top (sold for silk paper, but it will add interest to some charcoal alpaca fibre), some Finn fibre in three shades of grey for an icelandic shawl, and a length of beautiful blue merino/silk top from Fyberspates before it was time to meet TussahSilk at the Habu booth. Fortunately Takako was serving someone else (she’d said she wouldn’t allow me to buy any more) so I was able to add 500m of neutral bamboo laceweight and 2 cones of charcoal and rust silk-wrapped stainless steel (on sale!!) for a scarf I hadn’t planned. Doesn’t everyone wonder what it’s like to knit with steel? And that was the start of the long slippery slope down which I tumbled, becoming entangled with 2 skeins of laceweight qiviut and some Suzanne’s ebony circulars from Arnica apparently they became familiar with muskox and qiviut in Greenland. Look at her shawl designs; I was able to handle that Hyrna Herborgar, it’s wonderful and three skeins of Dream in Colour Smooshy from Socktopus. Two for gifts, one for me. Alice (the owner) was enjoying the show but a bit worried by the speed at which yarn was disappearing from her shelves. I hope everything worked out, she had a lovely smile!

OK, that’s the confession. I still feel quite remarkably confused about the qiviut. I love it, I am desperately looking forward to knitting it, but I didn’t need it and it was relatively extraordinarily expensive.

Spinning. Ah, spinning. I love my drop spindle. I love spinning silk. I discovered that spinning in public is easier than knitting. The train’s at your stop? Stuff everything in the bag and leave, you don’t have to worry about dropping stitches or markers, finishing rows, remembering precisely what was going on. Got 3 minutes to spare? Pull out the spindle and continue. I spun on the train (to the polite consternation of the male commuters, who watched whenever they thought I was looking the other way), I gave a basketmaker her first spinning lesson in the queue to enter the hall, I spent lunch teaching TussahSilk how to spin, I spun while she started to learn continental knitting at ‘Relax and knit’.

I devoted Sunday afternoon to spinning. I want to finish the ‘Chain of Fools’ superwash. He’s been watching its progress with interest; on Sunday I asked whether he’d like a pair of socks that colour and the answer was a (for him) enthusiastic ‘yes’. I filled two bobbins with singles twisted a little more tightly than I wanted (for the plying) and then a little more tightly still (to compensate for quickly feeding the singles counterclockwise onto another bobbin to even the twist). Here are the bobbins on the Louet Victoria’s lazy kate with a loop of string to add more tension: the built-in tension on the lazy kate isn’t enough to stop the bobbins unreeling madly.

And this is the end result:
I love the colour, I love the barber-poling. I started spinning to make sock yarn that looked like this! and then I fell in love with silk and laceweight and who knows where this affair will end…
I’m not sure about the weight, though. It looks a bit thinner than I wanted – I might have gone for a 3-ply if I could have put another bobbin on the lazy kate – but it should thicken a bit after washing/whacking/etc. The singles are more uneven than I’d thought, due to failure to concentrate on the length of singles mounted on card as a guide combined I think with the sheer length of time it’s taken to spin. I suspect that for consistency in singles I should aim for occasional long sessions instead of odd half-hours. Mind you, I have an awful lot of very odd half-hours :-)

Or at least I feel as though it is. That’s part of the ‘Shoulder Shawl in Cherry Leaf Pattern’ from Victorian Lace Today, in Mini Maiden ‘Periwinkle’. A rod for my own back: ‘shoulder shawls’ don’t really appeal to me, I prefer something a little more like a hug (especially if it’s to be a gift). So I added 5 pattern repeats. Which wasn’t a problem, as the body stitch pattern is easily memorised. I was (I can’t believe this) actually looking forward to my first knitted-on border, my first ‘fully-fashioned’ (ie pattern stitches on every row) lace. Gah. Only 12 rows, but can I remember them? I must have the pattern in view at all times. And it seems to exist in a parallel universe where time runs more slowly as soon as I pick up the needles: the rows are short, I seem to be constantly k-ingtbl into a shawl stitch, and yet the border creeps along more slowly than I’d have believed possible. The virulent green bit is another learning experience: the pattern called for a provisional cast-on, leaving the first row of stitches open and ready for a crochet border (I am so looking forward to that…). I decided that knitting a pattern repeat in a contrasting yarn would have the same result and allow me to learn the pattern. OK, one part of the plan worked. I have learned something else from this, though. The finished shawl will be very… Victorian. The large bold body pattern, surrounded with lots of twiddles (the knitted-on border, finished with crochet loops) is very reminiscent of Victorian parlours [site is slow to load, but the 360° works well] with boldly patterned walls and decorative dust-traps on every surface. It really should have been red or dark green or gold, not periwinkle. Probably all three. Anyway, it’s not to my taste. I find I prefer more finely-detailed lace. Shetland here we come…

There’s not been much other knitting lately, everything seems to have stalled. I don’t like what’s happening with the colourwork on the heel of the Gairloch Socks, so when I finish the shawl I’ll sit and work out what to do about those. The Alpaca Thing is laughing at my lack of stamina. I’ve got lots of work, too: I’ve assessed, touched-up, or drawn from scratch about 300 illustrations in the last 3 weeks, with another 100-odd to go. My own typesetting project is drawing to a close, but we’re so far behind that the next volume isn’t far away, and I’ve got lots of other stuff in the queue… I need to find some energy! I’m swatching for the Cinnabar pullover from IK, but I need a 6.5mm Addi or other shiny needle for the linen stitch; I should, I could use the Denise set but they feel so clumsy by comparison with Addis. After reading so many good reviews I’ve given in and ordered a set of Knitpicks Options from GetKnitted. That’s a cheering thought. Another cheering thought… for me, at least. Some might disagree :-) I have a Big Birthday soon. Half a century. I’ve started to think about all the things I’ve seen and (with luck) the things I’ve yet to see! A semi-birthday present materialised on the route of a walk through London on Saturday:
I have a thing about skeletons and bones, skulls in particular. I like them. I think they’re wonderful structures, amazing feats of engineering, and for me they symbolise both life and death. This ring from The Great Frog incorporates all that; I love the contrast between its meaning for me and the Heavy Metal ‘skull with rats’ design (the rats are investigating a gaping hole in the back of the skull :-). I must confess that I also enjoy shocking people who don’t know me. The other birthday gift is under discussion: he wants to buy me a really good spinning wheel, something that I’ll use and love for decades (he is a keeper, isn’t he?) and my sister wants in on it too. I’ve been reading reviews wherever I find them, paying attention to the wheels used by noted bloggers and professional spinning folk. I think… I think my dream wheel may be a Schacht Matchless double treadle. But it’s a lot of money and my spinning wouldn’t do it justice. Yet. It’s very tempting, though.

Update: I’ve just been told he’s made a Management Decision and ordered a Schacht. I’m thrilled for two reason: 1. I’m getting a new wheel! and 2. I don’t have to faff about it anymore. So that’s 3 birthday gifts, more than enough for a half-century :-)

Back to work. I have to finish something so I can invoice someone so I can justify drawing up a shopping list for the Knitting & Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace. I wonder if anyone there will have a Schacht I could look at?

PS. I’ve just remembered I should have mentioned: the handspun Wool Peddler Shawl was delivered to my mother’s door the day before her birthday. When I rang to wish her Many Happy Returns she was wearing it, or at least said she was. It’s a great success! Hurrah!