As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been spinning with projects in mind - a rug and a sweater/wrap. I have two spinning wheels, a Kiwi2 and a Joy2, both from Ashford. I am spinning the fat rug yarn on the Kiwi2, the sweater yarn on the Joy2. This way I can work on both project yarns without having to swap out bobbins.
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| Single, on bobbin |
The sweater roving is pink and gray, feels like a mixture of breeds (hopefully, I will find something with the name of the fiber on it) and is kind of coarse. Despite a fair amount of VM (vegetable matter), it spins up nicely. It did bleed a bit when soaked to set the twist.
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| A little bleeding |
Lately, I have become enamored with three-ply, which is good for the fat rug yarn. I'm not so sure about using three-ply for the sweater, though. The pattern calls for worsted weight yarn, but my three-ply is more like aran or even bulky. Not that I couldn't adjust the gauge and knit it with a heavier yarn, I'm just not sure I want to.
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| 7-8 wraps per inch |
Three-ply yarn knits up smoother, especially in stockinette, because the yarn is round; it also pills less than 2-ply. An alternative to knitting with the aran weight yarn would be to spin finer singles and 3-ply those into a worsted weight yarn. That is an option.
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| 3-ply |
When plying singles, invariably one bobbin runs out before the others. When that happened with the 3-ply, I plied the remaining singles into a 2-ply. Now I have samples of each, to knit swatches with.
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| 9 wraps per inch |
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| 2-ply on left, 3-ply on right |
The Veronika cardigan pattern has a lot of positive ease, so gauge is not critical. Since I don't really like a lot of positive ease, I plan to knit the smaller size, in which case I might care more about gauge. Also, I don't want to run out of yarn since I won't be able to buy more of this roving.
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| 2-ply swatch, in purl ridge stitch |
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| About 30 rows per 4", aiming for 26 |
After swatching the worsted weight and hitting the stitches-per-inch gauge, I thought, This is it! But I am having second thoughts, so I will knit up the aran weight, to see if I like it better. Also, I am playing around with the idea of widening the stockinette area between the garter ridges, then knitting the garter ridges in a contrasting color, like black.
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| 16 stitches per 4" |
Decisions, decisions.
2 comments:
My goodness you have been busy, I love your spinning, so beauitufl. Good luck.
Please bring your WPI tool to the next meeting! I love it!
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