Felted up

This past week I felted the L-Bag and its pocket patch. Initially, I didn't use lingerie bags - MISTAKE. After deciding the fabric couldn't be too felted, I ran it through two hot water agitation cycles with a pair of jeans. The bag has a nice shape to it, but the rectangle is a bit skewed.

Crochet: I finished the artisan market bag - it's a bit floppy; separate post to follow. I met a woman yesterday who makes similar fiber boxes, but she uses wool and crochets around a core of rope, like clothesline. Hers are much stiffer.
Dyeing: As I write, some skeins of yarn are soaking, destined for the amaranth dye pot.
Knitting: Still working on Bigfoot's socks.
Spinning: Still spinning the merino top.
Weaving: Fourth Third wash cloth off the SampleIt loom. I'll explain that later.

The local parks and rec department put an end to our spring fiber festival, instead inviting us to join their new fall harvest festival. I didn't attend last year, but this year demo'd spinning. It's a lot of fun chatting up the visitors, both kids and adults. I spun on my wheel, but the kids could also spin a little yarn of their own on a spindle. Some improvements for next year: have microscopes or some kind of magnifiers so the kids could look at wool fiber and see the barbs. Also, have samples of wool they can feel and SMELL.

Clapotis contest, and some crochet

Have you ever knit a clapotis? The pattern appeared on Knitty.com twenty years ago. To celebrate this popular project, Knitty is offering a clapotis fest contest.
Knitters are encouraged to use yarn from an indie dyer.

I knit one in 2010, from Cascade Pima Tencel, a yarn that has been (rightly) discontinued, as it sheds. I may knit another, maybe from handspun. The deadline is December 1, 2024, so I have some time to decide, as the first one took less than two weeks to knit.

My granddaughter has expressed an interest in learning to crochet(!) I'm so excited, as I have tried to interest her in crafts over the years but to no avail. She wants to be able to make amigurumi animals. We've had one lesson so far: chain stitch and single crochet. Next up will be honing her technique: how to hold the yarn and needle to maintain tension and produce even stitches. I hope she has been practicing.

I stocked up on cheap yarn for her to use.

My granddaughter's interest in crochet has revived my interest in it as well. A fiber friend fed that fire by sharing a photo of two baskets she crocheted from yarn scraps. So, of course, I had to try my hand at a basket myself.

The pattern is from Crochet Southwest, by Susan Kennedy, and is called "Artisan Market Baskets". It calls for seven yarns held together (although any combination that results in a bulky yarn would work). I am pulling both ends from a cake of sock yarn (one of those Why did I buy this?!? purchases), two colors of 8/4 cotton, one color of Lion Brand cotton, Lion Brand Kitchen Cotton leftover from a weaving project, and some varigated Sinfonia mercerized cotton I think I purchased at Tuesday Morning. So mostly cotton, but I think it is impossible to select a bad choice of yarns and colors for this project.

The hardest part is the yarn wrangling. If you look closely at the photo below, near the center you will see a bit of brown sock yarn that I didn't maintain tension on, so there is a loose loop. By the time I noticed it (and several others), I was far enough along I didn't want to go back, but I'm trying to be more careful going forward.

The only other problem with crochet is it makes my hands hurt.

Crocheting: See basket info above. I also started a Woobles penquin.

Dyeing: I cut down some of the amaranth, which is now soaking in tap water in the garage. I plan is to use half with an alum-mordanted yarn, half with rhubarb leaf-mordanted yarn. I hope to soak the rest of the amaranth in well water, which contains a lot of iron. which should produce a different result. Amaranth is not very colorfast, so I am going to dye some test samples as well.

Knitting: Socks progressing. I still haven't felted the L-Bag pieces.
Spinning: I keep looking at the fiber on the spinning wheel, keep meaning to get back to it, but so far no success.

I don't mean to keep harping on swatching, but I started one this past week, to see how two yarns looked together. I didn't have to go far to decide I don't like them knit this way.

I keep looking for a pattern for this rather coarse yarn, but so far no luck.

Saved by the swatch

The pattern I want to base the basketweave sweater on is basically reversible. But stripes are not reversible, as I realized when I tried swatching them, so I'm cool on that idea. In fact, I'm now leaning toward buying new yarn for the sweater. Maybe.

Which reminds me of my fiber goals for the year. The "Buy no fiber" one didn't last long. Finishing a poncho I started a LONG time ago has not happened... yet (hope springs eternal). And I didn't dye any roving, which I'm thinking is not a good idea anyway because it is difficult to dye roving at home without felting it.

The tee shirts for the spinning guild have been delivered... mostly. Not all those who ordered them attended the last meeting, so I still have a few. I'm glad I ordered several extra ones, as they were snatched up. I have to admit I am not in love with the color of the lettering, as I think it is difficult to read across the white, but others liked it.

Knitting: I finished the pocket square, which is more like a pocket rectangle. Now all I need to do is felt the square and the L-Bag (once I catch up on the laundry). The Big Foot socks are under way - great TV knitting.
Spinning: Did I spin this week? Probably some, working with the maroon merino top.

Surprisingly, there are several local opportunities to see fiber arts in the wild this month. By "wild" I mean in exhibits. The Orchard Gallery is featuring one of our weaving guild members who not only weaves, put "paints" with felted fiber and practices "ice dyeing". I bought one of her scarves.

Another weaving guild member is participating in an exhibit in the gallery at the downtown branch of our local library system. She is a member of Complex Weavers, and it shows.

One of the current exhibits at ArtLink features four(!) fiber artists. I wish we could have attended the panel discussion they had after the opening. Too bad they did not record it.

Notice the swatch on the right!

I've been playing around with the idea of loading all my yarn and roving into big totes and storing them in the garage, to free up space in the spare bedrooms. Of course, each bin would have to have a manifest so I could find stuff. Or would the stored fiber just be forgotten?

I never regret swatching

I'm still enamored with the sweater I mentioned several posts ago. I think I could make modifications to this pattern (which I knit a while ago) that would approximate what I'm aiming for. But what kind of stitich to use?

I started with one called Ringwood, on a heathered brown yarn, but the stitches barely showed up. I switched to some Lion Brand Fisherman's wool in natural and I switched to a basketweave stitch. The stitch shows up much better on the lighter wool, plus the stitch pattern is a bit easier.

Interestingly, I find the wrong side of the fabric to be more interesting than the right side. Several friends I've canvassed agree. The sweater pattern is knit in reverse stockinette, so it should work well.

Now the question is whether to purchase more Lion Brand yarn, or make do with something I already have. There is some yarn I bought many years ago, some in natural and some in maroon, but there is not enough of either color to make a sweater. So now I am going to knit a swatch using this yarn in stripes. Hopefully, after that I will feel confident enough to cast on.

Knitting: My SO had hand surgery this past week, so I made some progress on the socks while sitting in the waiting room. The pocket square for the latest L-bag is almost done.
Spinning: It occurred to me that the roving I purchased at the last weaving guild meeting was priced per ounce, whereas I thought the price was for each bag. I fretted about that, but the seller assured me the price on each bag was for the bagful. Whew! The merino that I am now spinning came from her.

The local parks and rec department discontinued the spring fiber fest at Salomon Farm (attendence was too low after the pandemic). Instead, the guilds will have a presence at the Fall Harvest Festival. I'm digging out some unwanted knitting to sell, pricing each item around $5 per ounce, which of course does not cover labor. We'll see how that goes.

Compulsive knitting

I'm almost 72 years old and just recently suspected that I have AD/HD. Better late than never, right? I probably won't get a formal diagnosis - what is the point now? - but if I had had one when I was still working, I may have been able to get some concessions from my employer, like the right to knit during meetings.

I've been listening to a podcast called Women and AD/HD, and it has been very helpful. One I recently tuned into mentioned that compulsive knitting may be a sign of AD/HD. Huh. Who knew? But it is all making sense to me. Of course, now I look at my fiber friends and wonder, Do you have AD/HD? Some of their behavior (besides the compulsive knitting) is suspicious.

Knitting: Started a pair of socks for my son, AKA Bigfoot. Initially, I was going to try to make do with one skein of yarn, but 1) did not like how the self-striping yarn looked when ribbed, and 2) worried about running out of yarn, especially if there were a break in the yarn like with the last pair. So I purchased some Opal sock yarn from Simply Socks in 'natural'... and THEN discovered I already had a whole 50-yard skein of their sock yarn in the same color. Well, now I have plenty.

Spinning: The three-color braid is finished and labeled, although I'm not sure of the fiber content. The brown almost completely disappears in the three-ply. I did something different with the leftovers - spun them all onto one bobbin instead of separate ones.

Then I started a new spinning project - merino top.

This past week, I spun at the Salomon Farm farmers market with another spinner. You can tell summer is winding down, as fewer people were in attendance. Yesterday, I attended the Fifth Saturday Spin-in at Teasel Hill Angoras Farm, which is always fun, but it being a holiday weekend, only a few of us showed up.

Happy Labor Day!