Yarn talk

While I have been spinning I have been sighing and looking at my singles hoping that they would get plied magically by themselves during the night. I do not like plying. At the same time I am loving knitting with Noro Kureyon Sock Yarn.

During this year I have enjoyed e.g. Zauberball Sock Yarn. Few years ago I made few bags with Istex Létt-Lopi and fulled them in the washing machine and they turned out better than I could imagine. I have not yet tried to knit with Istex Einband in order to make felt but I intend to.

Last summer while in Sweden I bought Klippan Fårö Yarn.

I have lots of this Finnwool by Pirtin Kehräämö.

And yesterday by mail came these two balls of Sekku, new Noro yarn (cotton, wool, nylon, silk blend) that I just like to look at and dream. I don't know how this feels to knit, but it is lovely to touch. I am naming here just a few, there are many, many more yarns on the market that are all unplied or singles.

You can guess where I am going with this... Sure enough, I looked at my spinning and decided to aim for singles as final product. What a relief! For a while I will concentrate on getting just the right weight, so far my singles have been little bit too thin for what I have on mind. I have been spinning Finnwool that felts really easily and setting the twist after spinning has been a bit problematic. First I set the twist by steam (while the yarn is still on niddy-noddy) to tame the yarn a little bit, so that it will not go all crazy when being taken off the niddy-noddy. Steaming does help to make the handling little bit easier but the yarn really wakes up again in the bath. I give it some shock treatment with hot and cold baths, because I want to felt it a bit to get rid of the tangling twist. Then I beat it and every now and then I check to see that it does not felt too much. The outcome is quite good but I am not sure if this is the right way to go.

The Finnwool I have been spinning is light grey and another thing I would love to learn more and get some experience is dying the yarn. I have been using old dyes from years ago and once I am done with the last drops, I am going to look into all the new stuff that there is and hope to find some new dyes.

When I have the handspun yarn all done I usually can't wait to ball it. I just cannot let it stay in skein, even though I think the yarn would keep better that way. So I have a collection of balls that I mostly can tell the fiber content of (some fibers are close to each other while others are very distinct) but don't know how much there is. Today I spent some time carving a stamp that I could use to make tags for the balls. I should have made the tag smaller and I might need to carve another stamp but that job will be for another day.

Here is the picture that I drew for the stamp. You are welcome to save it into your own computer and use it the way you like. I think it could be used as a gift tag, maybe printed on heavier paper with colored ink if you are not into stamp making.

It feels like fall here today, the colors are muted down with grey and the world gets more quiet every day. During the summer I wake up early every morning because of the birds, I wish I could understand more of their speech. I know, I said more, because I think I can pick up some of the topics in the air. These days when I wake up, I listen for a while if I can hear the lake and the waves to know what the day will be like. But now, time for a cup of coffee.

Wool with you,

Lene

PS. The new puppy is Swedish Vallhund.

Good things

The other night I woke up because of Tina. I heard her say just once Hau! (Finnish dogs say "hau".) It was very stern hau and I immediately knew that something was happening outside, nothing very big, nothing to be concerned of. But I got up and sure enough, there was a reindeer wandering around the yard. I took one quick picture and went back to bed to catch an hour or two before getting up.

I have had many happy wishes for the new puppy and many of you have wondered what kind of a puppy we are getting. Finally I can tell you. The litter was born on July 11th and there are six new grey puppies and one of them will be ours. Don't you just love this picture? This is the happy, thrilled, glorious mama with her new litter, the little ones are just three days old in the photo. (This picture (by Anski Hautala) is from the pages of Kennel Antimos, and is published here by permission.)

Tina has been most strange this summer. She has never had a tendency to run away, but now she does that a lot. I really have to pay attention where she is now, while before when I was puttering around the yard, she was never far and came right away when called. I have been thinking that maybe this is because we used to have three dogs and now she is all alone and she really does not have companions of the same kind (Mr Cat probably does not count) and she gets bored. Mr Cat has also been peculiar, he hunts a lot and is quite successful too and while usually he keeps his treasures to himself, all this summer he had been trying to bring these critters inside. He has had luck two times but now I just stop him at the door to see what he is trying to sneak in.

"The weather up here is cooler now, not bad but not hot any more, the nights already get quite dark for a little while and while all this has been going on around me, I have been digging around in my stash and searching around Ravelry. I really need to get some lace onto the needles and have been looking at Rosemary's patterns. She has plenty and I have cast on for Maia, a small shawl from her new book to be.
This shawl has a little more unique construction and is a bit different in the category of lace shawls. It has a portion of stitch pattern - simple garter stitch rib - that I have never seen in lace shawls and this makes the shawl different, the eye keeps returning to the garter stitch spot, and it really gives nice contrast for the lacy patterns in the shawl. I just have to knit this to see how I like it. Also it has beads in it and I really want to try them too.

The sample is knitted with high twist merino sock yarn, but I am knitting with lace weight. Because of the garter stitch rib pattern and lace weight yarn, I am using smaller needles, size 3 mm (US2,5). My choices are making the shawl smaller but the pattern tells that this can easily be made bigger by increasing one pattern repeat."

I wrote the above few days ago, and since then... the lace yarn, not good, not good, ... I broke the yarn and have Citron (from Knitty winter 09 issue) going on with that yarn... Not sure I love it there either (it is handspun merino/silk) and I just might rip it again. (What is it with some yarns, they just never find their match and roll around stash until they start to pill and look wretched). And the beads for Maya did not work either, it was so pesky getting them onto the stitches that I just had to let that idea go. I will return to Maya when I find a good yarn for her.

Yesterday when I was doing laundry, I ironed one cardigan that has been around for a long time and has seen better days. I really should find the final destination for her and stop wearing it. But it is so good, it is light, it is the right size for under coat, the color is just right, it does not show occasional coffee spills... Now, I am going to cut the cardigan into pieces (for pattern), find a good yarn, good, humble, wearable yarn and try to knit one like her. I will try to document every step of the way. This will be a long process but hopefully I will have made myself a good pattern with set in sleeves in the end. Good basic pattern that I can keep modifying eternally. I will search through the stash first to see if there is anything I can use. I have few heavier yarns that I would like to get rid of, so I just might need to settle with them at first. I do realize I am already tossing away the idea of having light cardigan... But nothing has been settled so far, I check my stash first.

I guess this is all for now. I so love the white nights and am so sorry to see them go but then, I am happy to be knitting again. I mean knitting, not just passing the time with needles at hand.

Oh, and wool with you (it will be very warm weekend here, but wool is just around the corner, this I know for sure).

Lene