Buttonbands and detail

I'm excited to say that I am finished with sleeves, finished with neckline edging and one button band down on my Twigs and Willows cardigan from Alana Dakos' lovely book, Botanical Knits! It's entirely possible that I could be finished by the end of this week.
I feel like I haven't finished anything for ages (which is not true) and this is going to be a lovely cardigan. That I will not be wearing for at least another 6 months. Hmm.

So the first part of finishing was the edging around the neckline. It's simple construction and initially I thought that I would need to go down to a size 4 needle (the sweater is on size 5's) but after playing with that for a while I realized that it needed to be a size 3. I couldn't face a floppy neckline so really wamted/needed/longed for a firm edge. Although even with a 3 it didn't seem overly stiff.

It's nice and tidy. Nice, finished and tidy.

Picking up the buttonband was also a long forgotten tedious chore. I normally avoid buttonbands except for the kidlets and this one needed to be picked up on both knit/plain and purl stitches, so was a teeny bit fiddly.

And despite the smaller needles the ribbed button band was still very stretchy.
Which is as it's supposed to be but I think I had hoped for a slightly firmer fabric.

And I am enjoying the different textures as they abut each other. Very satisfying.

So tonight there will be the buttonhole band and then seaming along the sides. I could probably finish  it if I really wanted to but I am finding that I'm more tired than usual in the evenings and have been heading to bed pretty early. Still,  there's no pressure. Last time I checked the knitting police were down the street knocking on the door of all the the people who aren't knitting something wonderful from 'Botanical Knits'.

Button me up...

I forgot that when I was in San Francisco I went to a wonderful fabric place and bought buttons. It's famous enough that it's pointed out on bus tours and it's called Britex and it was wonderful.

Luckily I already had blisters by then and was desperate to get back to my hotel, otherwise I would have been bankrupted by the end of day. I avoided the fabric but indulged in buttons. I had no projects in mind and merely chose buttons that spoke to me.
They spoke to me in a quiet and subdued way, but still, those are often the best conversations.

I've even put them in a separate tin all of their own. They are not associating with the common buttons. They are above the bourgeoisie. In fact, I may dub that tin "Downton Abbey". Or the Upstairs tin. And then my other button box can be the Downstairs tin. For those that are familiar with Upstairs, Downstairs. Oh dear, I'm rambling.

Twigs and Willows in the Hot and Humid South

So last week I was feeling that I really must have acclimated to living in the South as it had been so cool for so long in May that I positively longed for summer.
 Me! The person whose secret dream is to live in Minnesota where it's cold more often and snow is reliable. (Or Wyoming, or the Dakotas or anywhere significantly cold.)
 Still, it was weird not having heat in May.
Well, I was wrong. I am not acclimated at all. It's humid as all hell today and I am indoors with AC on, not because it's so warm but because the air is too full of water. I am not acclimated at all.
Wait. I take that back. I am totally acclimated. To air conditioning.

I can do cold. I cannot do humid. This is a truth that will not be altered.

So in spite of my moaning and heatedness, I am still working on the worsted weight, full sleeved sweater that is Twigs and Willows. It's a lovely pattern with great details and carefully thought out construction and yes, there's an awful lot of stockinette at the moment and I admittedly am quietly desperate for a little fuss and bother in my knitting, but I am so close to done that I simply have to push on. I know I can finish this sleeve tonight and then it will be seaming and then buttons bands and then done. I just know it.
(I am also going through this weird knitting psychosis thing where I look at a project and think that I can finish it in a night. I have been tempted to take a night off from the sweater and knit up a 300 yard scarf. Because in my head, that will just take one night. Craziness. But there's just no talking to me. I've tried.)

See all the pieces? See how it's almost done? Must. Push. Through.

Twigs and Willows

I've been watching Amy Herzog's fabulous Craftsy class on knitwear fit. It's based on her book "Fit To Flatter' and I think partly due to her innate charm and partly due to her sensible approach, it's an enjoyable and educational experience. Obviously if you're learning about fit, you want to practise what you're being told and as The Knitgirllls were having a Knit-a-long for a sweater in May and June, it seemed like a good opportunity to well...knit a sweater. (I say this as if I haven't knitted a garment in months. I have another 2 cardigans on the needles in various stages of progress both of which are eminently suitable spring/summer choices.)
Ms Herzog did have a few recommendations. She wanted a top up, seamed garment. She had talked about styles that flattered certain body types and part of the course was to strip down and measure yourself. (That required some bravery and ended up in my ordering a treadmill. I kid you not.)

So I tried to be good and picked a pattern that was already in my fairly hefty library. I chose Twigs and Willows by Alana Dakos and wrote out all the adjustments I was going to make. It's been an interesting process and the adjustments have been minor. The fact that it's knit out of worsted weight wool has made it a little quicker to move on and even though my knitting time has been limited with work and a series of other projects (fleece cleaning, spinning and cleaning the mess I keep making) I've managed to finish the back and now the two fronts. Except that of course nothing is without some minor upset.

Yesterday I had a little counting issue. I couldn't quite remember if I had bound off 8 or 9 stitches and initially thought that I had figured it out but as I progressed I realised that I had one stitch too many. Easy fix, I thought. I'll just decrease by purling 3 together. And when I did that little maneuver  I initially thought it looked just fine. Invisible, I thought to myself.
But as I knitted on and the natural tension of the surrounding stitches pulled and twisted, that decrease showed itself as an unnatural looking hole. I was forced to rethink. I was forced to surrender to the inevitable frog pond.

So. Here we start.

Here we pull.

And down she goes.

And with a little perseverance we've recovered.

And we're done.

I'm happier now that all is well. But as usual, the thought of undoing all my work kept me knitting on something that I knew wasn't working and really, just ended up making more work for me.

I'm using some stash Berroco Vintage and it's a pleasant yarn to work with. And I'm knitting down the stash which is reason enough to love it.

Books, birds and throwing things out.

I've been throwing out stuff. It is endlessly fascinating to me how despite annual trips to Goodwill, there are always things to be discarded. It says something about me and society and it makes me uncomfortable. I persevere but I remain an impulsive shopper.

Still, purging is good for the soul and I have 4 shopping bags full to the brim that are in the back of my car, waiting delivery. With all this purging I am eyeing other things that could be weeded out. My stash of yarn had a once over but I'm not ready. I thought about my fiber but as I have a bin that collects all myleftover bits of fiber for the day that I buy a drum carder, I'm clearly not ready for that either.
And then there's the fabric. From the days before time, when I quilted.
Well, I'm definitely nor throwing that away! But I am prepared to use it up. So back to the plan of doing the Block of the Month classes on Craftsy. I'd never really given up the idea but I was letting the impetus run through my fingers, and the dream of making space in the containers under the bed took hold again.

So March's block is done! And no, for those of you who know some of the ins and outs of the class, I didn't pay any attention to the drafting section. I think I can adjust a pattern if I need to. (I think.)

This is called the Economy block. It certainly is a great way to use up scraps.

And as you can see, the pile of blocks is growing. I'm currently halfway through April's block. It's a block that involves curves and the possibility of appliqué and as I'm pretty sure I can do hand appliqué (again, I think) I'm contemplating trying to do it on the machine. Cause I'm wild like that.

And the big news on the homefront is that a pair of birds is nesting outside my kitchen window. I can't see Mama bird but I'm sure she's in there on some eggs as Papa bird is to-ing and fro-ing with teeny tiny worms. He's just a drab little thing but I'm enjoying watching him so much. Yesterday I made the mistake of going out onto the patio to get some sun and fresh air and he squawked at me until eventually I gave up and went indoors. Clearly I was too close to his family to be. Although apparently he doesn't mind the cats...

Oh, and if anybody wants a good read, again I'm going to nominate Jo Nesbo. I've just read The Devil's Star and it left me a little breathless. Really, those Norwegians. Nothing to do in Winter except sit around and write good books. And knit.

Elbow deep in fleece

The fleece saga continues.

I'm still washing all the romney locks, lined up neatly in their bundles. They are busy drying as I type and will be used to be combed into top. I can't wait.
But I was thinking that I don't have to comb everything. I could card some fibre.
The technique that I've been using of 'organized washing' (my term) that involves making sure you keep the top (cut end) and bottom (tip) of the lock is really important if you want to make smooth, consistent, dense yarn. What is called roving, or if it's really perfect, top. Worsted spun yarn. You would use combs to produce this yarn.
The other end of the yarn scale is woolen spun. (Or woollen. But frankly, I give up.)
That doesn't require meticulous fiber arrangement. In fact, it demands the opposite. A higgledy-piggledy blend of fluff.  Tools called carders are what are needed here.
So, I tried something different.
I watched Judith Mackenzie's Three Bags Full DVD very carefully.
I dumped a ton of fibre in an old stock pot, covered it with hot water and Dawn, and let it cook on the stove for an hour.
Rinse, repeat and other than some minor hot rinses, I was done.
It needed a little poking for some gentle agitation to make sure all the fibre was cleaned, but it worked. Beautifully!

Look at that big fluffy and clean fibre! And it's not felted at all. I could probably have spun with it without any prep but I carded a little last night and made a rolag and it spun like a dream. Just fabulous.

And as it happened my Polwarth arrived tuesday night. All 2.6 kg's of it.

If there wasn't that little matter of going to work the next day, I would have stayed up all night washing and playing with it.

I couldn't resist opening it though and grabbing a little lock just to check the colour. I washed it in the sink with some hot water and a ton of soap. (Margaret Stowe says that if you add enough soap it becomes too slippery to felt, and she's right!)

Now it looks a little bedraggled there as it was still wet but you can see the colour change just from a quick wash. Yesterday when I got home and saw that it had dried I couldn't resist putting it on my hand combs to see what it would do. I combed it out twice and then it was done.

So, so soft. I dizzed it off into top and spun it quickly and oh, it's amazing. (As an aside, I have lost my diz. I am using random buttons.)

It's so amazing that I might have contacted my friend and ordered some of her merino. She's in the middle of a major move right now so it's going to take a while but it's worth the wait. I'm excited to see what else she brings in. 

She's not ready to sell the fleece to the public yet, but she's been selling the most amazing silk for a couple of years now Her Muga silk is incredible. Her alpaca and silk blend is divine. And her cashmere-silk-possum is scrumptious. (I might have quite a lot of that actually.) 

Goodness, there's not enough time for all of this. And the fact that I have 3 cardigans and 2 pairs of socks on the needles, well, what of it? Apparently sleep is for the weak...

Fleece Cleaning. Or how I tried to distract myself from the fact that I wasn't at Maryland Sheep and Wool.

Sunday I washed fleece. I had work to do for monday and tons of laundry so I had already realised that I would be stuck in the kitchen most of the day and as I may have a New Zealand Polwarth fleece heading my way, I thought I should make some progress on the Romney fleece (the sheep's name is Princess if you're interested) tucked into the linen closet...

There it is. All piled up and dirty.

Above's my equipment. A roasting pan bought at Home Goods. Some lingerie bags from Walmart and some aluminium roasting pans bought wherever. The roasting pan came with a grid that you can use to lift things up from it. I actually use it to stabilise the lingerie bags of fiber as I tilt the roasting pan to let the dirty water drain off. The aluminium roasting pans are great at storing the wet lingerie bags in while they dry in the oven.

The fleece is pulled off in locks and put in the bags. Two rows, tips are facing inwards.
Place in roasting dish and squirt all over with Dawn washing liquid. Add hot water and simmer on stove. ( I ended up using the oven eventually as I had to make a quick run to the grocery store mid-simmer and that ended up working even better.)

And that's what is left behind after about an hour.

A broth of lanolin, dirt and sheep poo. Scented with Dawn. Now that's the really gross part.

And here is the lingerie bag with drying fleece.

It's still drying and some of the tips are still a bit yellow but I can scrub those later if I feel very strongly about it.
Improvements this time? I can do two lingerie bags at a time, and the oven really is a more reliable heat.  Also, I finally feel comfortable with just draining the soapy but clean fleece with hot water at the end, rather than having it simmer again for an hour. Once the sheep grease is off and the dirt has drained away, rinsing the soap off only requires what your hair would need, a couple of good rinses with hot water. That saves me an hour or so.