So, as you may know, there has been a big competition across the pond where men in funny outfits kill themselves on two wheeled contraptions. It’s called the Tour de France.

Anyway, while those crazy people are doing their thing over there, we fiber people do our own crazy thing over here, the “Tour de Fleece.” It tends to be pretty free-form though some people get together for specific challenges and such. Last year my own TdF was more organized.

This year my main goals were to spin every day, even if only a tiny bit, and make progress on some standing projects.

In those generalized goals, I succeeded. One of my specific goals I didn’t make, I wanted to finish spinning the handprepped romney/mohair batts into sock yarn, a project that’s been kind of hanging over me for a long time. Oh well. I did get a lot done.

For one thing, right at the beginning of it I flew down to North Carolina for a family thing. I managed to keep up my spinning at least a yard or two every day, and got a lot of spinning done in the airports. On the plane I started a basic beanie hat with my own handspun.

The hat

And the handspun. Abby Franquemont batts. These are going to be weft for a woven twill weave scarf I’m working on.

Both spun up on my lovely Spindlewood top whorl.

Once I got back, I finished sleying the reed on the loom for the scarf project. I’ll post more photos of the weaving project progress start to finish once I get a few more steps along.

I also spun some cobweb weight from cormo handprepped by the Tsocktsarina.

Spinning it on my newest spindle, a zebrawood spindle called a Tiger by… Cascade bought from Spunky Eclectic as my one purchase at MA Sheep and Wool. Love it. Spins great, especially things like silk for superfine stuff.

Then, right near the end of the Tour, the first of my new roving came back from the mill. Very exciting. Domestic Perendale and Polwarth. Since I’m going to be putting some of the Perendale up in my next shop update, I thought I should spin some myself since it’s a new fiber to me. So I grabbed my Bosworth Midi spun some up longdraw and plied it, washed it, fulled it, and dried it. 3-ply on the left, 2-ply on the right.

3-ply close up

2-ply close up

It’s an interesting fiber. Spun this way it’s a fairly prickly fiber but makes a much softer yarn than you expect. So I went all the way and knit it up, washed it and blocked it. Well, as much as you can block a 1.5″ squarish.

And a closeup. You can see it’s got more luster than your average downs wool. It comes from the Romney in the bloodline. It’s VERY springy and lofty with a big halo. It’s not super soft, about what non-specified “wool” sweaters usually are. So good for anything a mid-level romney would be good for, sweaters, hats, mittens, heavy-duty socks, outerwear, etc.

And that’s about it for my TdF. Other than keeping Gnomespun running, and expanding things slightly and examining a few new possible paths.

TdF 2010

And now, back to the dye pots. Perendale and Polwarth roving. A couple new things coming up!

Until the next time!

~The Gnome

I’ve been doing hats lately. They’re a good way to test out some design theories that don’t take too long.

This one is a one-skein hat (exactly one skein, 14 inches to spare) of KnitPicks Wool of the Andes.

Overall, I’m pretty pleased. However, I need to make one more pattern repeat to fit my fat head with all the cabling. You can see in the photo where I’m wearing it that it still pulls too much across the cables. I’ll add a pattern repeat and then go down a needle size for the “ribbing” at the bottom.

So that’s in the plan. But I also want to do a sweater, for me. So I’m designing one. From (pretty much) scratch. It’s interesting so far. I’ll be casting on shortly. I’ll have ~12 hours on the train coming up, so that should give me some good time to work on it.

That’s it for now. See ya soon!

~The Gnome

So clearly I’m way behind on blogging. This means that I have the freedom to choose among several topics for a while.

But first, the shop. So it was updated, and has been quickly being depleted. I will be updating it again soon. I will be updating again on Monday, assuming we don’t get hit with a snowstorm… Which is a pretty fair assumption since we’re at less than half the usual snow for our area. DC has stolen all our snow, and more since they have wetter air. Going to be really rough on our water table.

Until then, here’s an actual knitting project I did. It’s a hat that I started on the plane down to my New Years Eve get together in the Outer Banks. I didn’t have any pattern or anything, so I cast on from memory, and unfortunately misremembered the size of a head. I thought I was casting on an extra 10 stitches, to account for the cabling, but instead I cast on 10 less than normal. Doh.

My own pattern, and mostly a proof of concept for doing separated cables. It came out very well.

See? I was pretty happy. Unfortunately, those missing ten stitches are a full pattern repeat, and make the hat rather… small for my fat head. Doh! So, I couldn’t wear it. Luckily, I have friends with kids. So, I dyed it. Red!

Here, you can see why I couldn’t wear it myself. Look how it pulls all to heck around the eyes of the cables.

You can also see why people strongly suggest dyeing the yarn, not the finished item. I worked pretty hard (and I’m pretty sure the recipient doesn’t mind) but getting the dye in under the cables is almost impossible. I should, however, have added more salt (to slow dye reaction) which might have helped. But it still came out pretty well, no?

I used about 150 yards or so of some grey Cascade 220 I happened to have lying around.

As I said, it’s a proof of concept hat. I’m working on two patterns based on it. One that’s still fairly conservative and one that’s requiring a rather extensive charting. More updates on those as they progress.

That’s all for now. See you soon!

~The Gnome

Hi guys.

I’m almost done. For realz this time. Just a few signatures left. I was hoping to get one last update to the shop up before xmas, but that is not going to happen. At this rate I’ll be lucky to get everything I have to get done, done in time.

I’ve got boss’ signature on my dissertation and then all the printing and official paperwork left. Then I’m done with that, and all that’s left is getting car insurance and health insurance signed up for/redirected/etc.

In the meantime, here’s a project I finished ages ago, but couldn’t tell you about at the time, and then things got insane.

This was what I did for the Fiber to Scarf Exchange 2009. Basically, you send out fiber, and it goes to someone (you don’t know who until after) and they spin it up and knit (or crochet or weave) a scarf or cowl out of it and send it back. You’ll remember a ways back when I posted the lovely alpaca scarf I got from my fiber.

What I got was some lovely purple/blue corriedale/romney from BlackBunny Fibers. I spun it up on both my ashford and my (at the time) new SR30.

2-ply, spun more-or-less with a point of twist sort-of-short draw.

(Photo by Joe)

I decided to knit without a pattern, because I like torturing myself, or something. Also, I’m really poor at following patterns.

So I designed this pattern, though I’m fairly certain it’s been done before by others. It’s essentially just a 3×3 diagonal rib (not a cabled diagonal like koolhaus or the like). I liked the effect, and think it came out pretty well. It scrunches nicely.

(Photo by Joe)

Here it is on me before I sent it out…

Then I sent it to the awesome QueerJoe (who’s fiber it was, and who took the better photos you’ve seen here)

And he loved it. Thank goodness. I’m always worried when crafting for other people.

Ok, back to forms.

~The Gnome

Lessee… shop updated. One Burning Bright, the April Showers (unless someone emails me for it or something), and the War for the Oaks are getting shipped to the brick and mortar store. Everything else is up.

So, among the many projects which I am a bajillion miles behind on, is a “Fiber to Scarf” trade. I haven’t started, you see. This makes me feel terribly guilty, but well… grad school. I will get it done, it’s just going to run up against the deadline more than I’d like.

However, my trade partner (who was just identified, since it’s a blind trade) has already finished. I sent him some lovely silver suri alpaca, and he sent back this…

EDIT: My trade partner was VTKnitboy, and here’s his Blog

Isn’t it pretty? And it’s SUPER soft. And squishy, with a remarkably good drape for a pure alpaca. Not a big fan of this photo, but hey.

He also kindly sent me back the extra yarn, even though I offered to let him keep it. it’s a lovely fingering/sportweight. I forgot to bring it so I could take a photo though.

That’s all for now, fiber update this weekend.

~The Gnome