Frazzled Knits

Fanning the Flame mittens

The mittens are complete!

The scoop:

• Pattern:  Fanning the Flame mittens by Heartland Knits
• Yarn:  64 grams Punta Yarns Merisock Hand Paint
• Needles: 2.25 mm double points
• Modifications: Knit thumb 10 ridges long before decreasing (instead of 7)

That's it for knitting news.  I've been completely monogamous with my mittens for weeks.  Now, on to other things!

One mitten down...

I finished the first Fanning the Flame mitten last night:

The only modification I made was to make the thumb longer - it took nine repeats instead of 7.  The yarn reminds me of ponds and mosses and green auquatic plants.  It is very vivid, but I really like the way it patterns up in the modular fans.

I also finally screwed my courage up and chain-plied my BFL/silk singles:

After my practice attempts turned out so massively over-plied I was very worried about wrecking the whole batch.  I fumbled a bit trying to chain it, and it sometimes ended up with one ply coiled around the other two instead of all three being even, but overall, it turned out better than I expected. Whew!

Now, I have no idea what I will do with this yarn.  I usually just use my handspun for hats or mitts, if I use it at all.  I spun this stuff using my smallest whorl, in attempt to get a higher twist yarn, and it seems to have worked, so I could maybe do something even a little stronger like little slipper socks. 

Fanning the Flame

I started another pair of Fanning the Flame mittens this weekend:

I'm trying them with a skein of Punta Yarns Merisock in colour HP74.  I never would have thought of using this yarn for this mitten pattern, but I saw these socks on Ravelry the other day and loved how the yarn patterned up in the fans. 

As with the first time I knit it (holy cow, it was FOUR YEARS AGO?), I am loving this pattern.  Once you get the hang of it (admittedly, the first fan took two tries and one half-frogging), there is something about the modular knitting that just makes it fly by.  I'm already onto fan #9 and will try to post an updated photo tomorrow. 

Our weekend road trip meant I also had a chance to visit Shuttleworks:

I went in for a driveband for my Lendrum spinning wheel and left with 5 skeins of Briggs & Little Regal, 2 skeins of Brown Sheep Wildfoote sock yarn, the book Craft of the Dyer, and 2 bottles of Eucalan.  Whoops!  It's just such a great shop.

As soon as I got home I had a very strong feeling that I already own Craft of the Dyer, but if I do, I can't find it anywhere.  Ah well, I have friends who I'm sure will appreciate the book if it turns out I have two copies.  It's one I've taken out of the library several times, because although it doesn't have any photos, it lists very useful dyeing info for plants that actually grow here in our aspen parkland.  That can be hard to find in other dyeing books! 

Mystery Sock (?)

In the process of turning my yarn room upside down last night, looking for the Fanning the Flame mitten pattern, I found this:

A mystery project!  It appears to be a sock.  A toe-up sock done with a reverse heel flap.  I remember where I bought this yarn, exactly: in Bad Ischl, Austria, about 6 years ago, right after having cakes at Cafe Zauner.  I can probably even tell you what I ordered at the Cafe, and describe the yarn shop's location.  The whole day is crystal clear.

After that, however, things get fuzzy.  I vaguely remember working on this sock in fits and starts over the past several years, and I think I was was using instructions from Sensational Knitted Socks as a guideline.

With a memory like that, the sock itself is going to have tell me what the heck I was doing on this thing!

Here's what I can see:

• It is toe up, done with a reverse heel flap.
• It looks like the foot was done on 60 stitches, and the heel flap on maybe 24.
• Cast on appears to be on 24 stitches (12 up, 12 down).
• The heel is turned and the sock has been left at the point of gusset decreases.
• It's sitting on a set of 2.25 mm needles - a size I didn't realize I had, so I bought another set a couple of months ago.  Oops.
• Mircale of miracles, the yarn label is still on the yarn!  It's Lana Grossa Mega Boots Stretch in colour 710.

Here's what I will try to do next:

• Finish decreasing the gusset back to 60 sts, maybe every third round to give extra length.
• Knit the cuff in 2x2 rib until half the yarn appears to be used up.
• Attempt to knit a second sock!

I could also just rip it out and start from scratch, and half of me wonders if this would be faster at this point, but the hard part is all finished on this little sock, and I hate to waste all that work.

I just spent the last hour and a half reading some of the archives on this blog.  Wow, I got up to a lot of creative stuff in 2008 and 2009.  I was also a lot more witty back then.  Sigh.  I feel so old now.  And crabby.  And uninspired.  I really need to perk myself up here.  People used to comment on my blog frequently, too, and don't nearly as much any more.  After reading all those old posts, I wonder if that's a culture shift, or an indicator of how much my blog writing has changed for the worse!

Anyway...after finishing those crazy striped mitts I have nothing currently on the needles (ignoring some long-hibernating projects such as this and this) and we are going on a long car ride tomorrow and I know I will need some knitting but I don't feel like knitting anything.  Have been trying to find a spark of "I want to knit that!" all day long. 

After looking through a bazillion* projects on Ravelry I have settled on a couple of possibilities that require almost no thought or modification or recalculation and are therefore ideal for this trip: another pair of Fanning the Flame mittens** in a green/blue Mirasol yarn from my stash, or maybe another Sockhead hat in Patons Kroy (also from stash) IF I can get a 2.5mm circular on our way out of town tomorrow. 

Oh look, I've wrangled an excuse to stop at a yarn shop tomorrow.  How did that happen?  Maybe I'm getting back to my old self after all!

P.S. Don't forget to mouse-over the photos for free added content!

* Did you know that "bazillion" is what is known as a non-numeric vague quantifier?

** Unfortunately, choosing this project sent me on a frantic search through my yarn room for the pattern, and I was terrified that I'd lost it, but it finally turned up in a cupboard of lesser used pattern booklets.  Thank goodness my old self was at least semi-responsible and organized!

 

Navajo plying

I have some very pretty blue/green/purple singles that I want to navajo ply to preserve the lengths of colour:

I've tried the technique once, many years ago when I was first learning to spin, but have never really used it since.  So I thought I'd practice on some bits of singles I had left over on my bobbins.

Well, thank goodness I practiced, because I discovered that I am terrible at it!  My first attempt was massivly overplied:

That is my first plied sample skein using a different singles, twisting tightly Z-wise in a vain attempt to overcome the overplying.

My second try was even worse, so I ran it back through the wheel in the opposite direction in an attempt to tame it.  That helped, but it still had a fair bit of Z-twist to it.  Having nothing to lose, I'm soaking it in the sink to see what happens:

I feel rather discouraged, but at least I now know that I am going to have to sloooow down when plying.  I'd already moved my driveband to the largest whorl possible.  I will have to train my foot to treadle very, very slowly as well, and maybe I can learn to do this properly!