Tuesday, December 01, 2009

An adventure in spinning and knitting

Well, more in spinning really, the knitting was not very adventurous.
But still, I knit a sweater for my husband with my own hand-spun! Whoo-hoo!

I guess that, in a way, I did it all wrong: did not decide on a pattern, or on a type of yarn, did not look for a specific fiber or used a dedicated spinning technique, did not compare samples, certainly did not take notes. Probably did not even make a swatch (gasp!).

What I did do was to let my eyes linger a little too long on some prepared top in beautiful shade of gray blue that I knew would complement my husband's eyes perfectly; I lingered long enough for the helpful owner of Brimstone Hollow Farm booth to help me out of my misery by selling me more than enough fiber for whole project.



I spun the fiber in my very little and very interspersed spare time. A bobbin here, a bobbin there, the only way I know how to spin, i.e. just as it comes. Every two bobbins, I plied the singles, for lack of extra bobbins. In September 2009, I had more time, and finally finished the spinning. By then I had read the book by Amy King, and my spinning technique had somewhat improved.

At that point, I took out a bunch of knitting books and magazine, sifted through them, offered my thoughts to my husband about various possibilities. His choice was either Field of Dreams from The Natural Knitter or Corduroy from A Fine Fleece. Even without making a swatch, I knew I would have to make some serious adjustments to the pattern to knit Corduroy, while Field of Dreams looked reasonable.


So off I went with the knitting, trying to mix and match skeins at random, to spread out the considerable unevenness of the yarn, without much success. Some parts are soft and bouncy, some are like rope. Some are denser, some are thinner.



But hey, when looked at in its entirety (and from a little distance...), the sweater is just fine, really. And the color is just perfect for my husband!




Just trust me on that.

2 Comments:

Blogger Martha said...

Nice sweater! I love the color. I liked Amy King's book, too. I haven't tried many of the techniques yet but it does give me a goal to work toward!

9:59 AM  
Blogger craftivore said...

What a lovely sweater and handspun too! That is hours and hours of love right there.

4:27 PM  

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