Woolfest 2009

This year, for me, Woolfest was all about spinning. Yes, there were the usual array of fluffy and furry fibre sources on display...

and very cute they were too.

And a little yarn was purchased...

Sock yarn for the Resident Radiologist as reward for braving Woolfest for the second year in a row.

A skein of beautiful alpaca, silk and cashmere blend laceweight for me from The Yarn Yard.

But mostly it was all about fibre...

Angora fluff from one of the bunnies on show on the day,

Superwash BFL combed top (naturals) from The Yarn Yard; Superwash merino combed top (pinks / oranges) and Falkland wool combed top (blues and greens), both from Felt Studio UK.











Merino - silk blend combed top from Wingham Wool Work that I've already spun almost half of.

I also aquired some more tools for making yarn from fluff...













A beautiful second-hand lazy kate and bobbins and an Ashford Niddy-noddy.

As always, Woolfest was a real treat for the fibre fiend in me and a fantastic prologue to a couple of days in the Lake District, walking (Place Fell and Ullswater this year) and enjoying the wonderful weather.

A Year in Yarn

About this time last year, I signed up for the Get Knitted Lorna's Laces sock yarn club. The deal was two skeins of a limited-edition colourway every two months.

The last installment arrived this month. To my eternal shame (as I'm meant to be stash-busting, not aquiring), I've not knitted any of it up yet, but I have plans...

Fandango - possibly destined for a Swirl Scarf.

Irish Jig - not sure yet - maybe socks for the Resident Radiologist?

Christmas Congo - definitely socks for the RR.

Laendler - may also be used in the Swirl Scarf.

Hula Kolili - this is the one I'm least fond of - I can't think what to do with it.

Three Drunken Maidens - socks for me.

There are several colourways here that I would have walked straight past in a shop and never have picked up myself, but they've all grown on me and each has it's own charms. In addition - as the club was from Get Knitted, they all arrived beautifully wrapped with a little extra (often edible) surprise.


Despite this blatent stash aquisition, I've actually been quite good over the last year. Any other yarn that I bought was knitted up straight away and on the whole, I've got less stash this year than last. I've also been having a clear-out so there is yarn available on my destash page on Ravelry. I may be about to make up for lost time though as the RR and I are off to the Lake District this weekend for some hill walking and a trip to Woolfest!

Caramel Alpaca

The whole recent spinning thing was instigated by a random conversation with a friend of my in-laws 18 months ago. She has five alpacas of varying colours that she keeps and I asked where she sold their fleeces onto when they were sheared. 'Nowhere' came the reply 'we just throw them away'. I was really surprised by this and explained that alpaca is a lovely fibre to knit with and that surely some small-scale spinner would use them...

...skip forward a few months and the in-laws came to visit. My FIL handed me a large sturdy carrier bag full of caramel coloured alpaca fluff. They'd been sheared and could I use some?

At that time, I didn't know how to spin and wasn't sure that I really wanted to learn (there's only so much time and another fibre-related obsession would detract from knitting time). The idea must have grown on me though, as, a couple of months later I bought a drop spindle at Woolfest, then recently I learned to use it and bought the hand carders needed to card the fleece.



I've been combing raw, unwashed fleece into these light and airy rolags...


Which spin up into a fairly fine single.


I then navajo-plied them and washed the yarn in the skein.


The finished product is a little underspun so I'm going to work on that in the next batch, but for now, I have about 100m of caramel coloured 100% alpaca yarn processed entirely from the raw fleece by hand.

Finished

Apres Surf is off the needles and all sewn up. I'm really delighted with the finished result - this was my best ever attempt at seaming and my best ever set in sleeves. I really feel that I've made progress with this project.


Here are the details:

Pattern: Apres Surf Hoodie by Connie Chang Chinchio
Yarn: RYC CashCotton 4 ply in Citron
Needles: 3.5 and 3.25mm addi lace needles.

Alterations: I knitted the body in the round up to the armholes and neck divide and then flat to the shoulders. I knitted the sleeves flat then seamed them before setting them in. I did a normal cast on for the body and sleeves and then did an applied i-cord afterwards instead of a provisional cast on and i-cord bind off. (I did do the i-cord bind off on the hood and it was lovely but took for ever!).


I still need to re-block since the neck and hood edging was added but I've already worn it a couple of times. The yarn is beautifully soft next to the skin and the shape is really wearable.

Learning Curve.

I've always enjoyed the challenge of learning a new skill and a class I took about a month ago has had me on a fairly steep learning curve ever since. I drove up to Twist Fibre Craft Studio in Newburgh in the north of Fife to learn how to use the drop spindle I bought at Woolfest last year.
I'd had a little go at using it but nothing had clicked and I decided that tuition was the way forward.


Initially, I used a top-whorl spindle supplied in the class and managed to produce some knobbly, hairy almost-yarn from some carded Icelandic wool. I then managed pretty much the same with my bottom-whorl spindle.

I bought some combed silk - merino tops to take home with me and started that evening and fairly quickly produced a spindle full of singles.


A quick watch of videos on the internet and I tried navajo plying it with pretty good success.
These skeins are on the small side and the yarn is a bit hard (I think that I over spun it).

Next I remembered about the mixed bag of combed merino tops I bought from Wingham Wool Work at Woolfest two years ago. I got it out and realised that I pretty much had a whole spectrum of colour. I started at the red end and spun through the colours until I reached the violet end.


This time I tried winding the single off the spindle with my ball winder, to try to control the tension during plying, which worked for a while, but eventually the lovely and obliging Resident Radiologist had to hold the ball and provide tension while I navajo plied (I like three ply - the yarn produced is much rounder so I'm going to stick with this method for a while).


I'm really pleased with the finished product this time. I've soaked and dried it to set the twist and the yarn is beautifully soft. I've ended up with about 80m of 4ply-weight yarn. Clearly I'm nowhere near the top of the learning curve yet, but I've reached a place where I can produce useful quantities of usable yarn.

Little Bits and Pieces

I'm still working well on the Apres Surf Hoodie - I've nearly finished the sleeves and then there's 'just' the blocking and sewing up to do!

In the mean-time though, I've found a great excuse for some instant gratification. One of my closest friends has just had a baby and another is expecting in the very near future. Baby knitting is the best form of near-instant finishing...




There's been an 'On the sunny side' hat, knitted with Colinette Banyan on 5mm needles.


A pair of Saartje's booties in the same yarn, knitted on 3mm needles.


Two pairs of baby socks knitted in Regia Bamboo sock yarn on 2.5mm needles.

I'm not sure I've got the baby knitting out of my system yet so there may be more to follow!

Progress

I've been knitting away on the Apres Surf Hoodie intermittantly for the last couple of weeks and progress has been good. The short lace repeat was easily memorised so I could pick up and put down whenever I wanted without too much reference to the pattern. The nature of the pattern also spurred me on to do 'just one more repeat'.


I've finished the body now and decided that, rather than leave stitches on a holder, I would just get the hood done too. The pattern is beautifully written and the lace pattern flows perfectly from the body into the hood and also lines up at the shoulders which makes me happy.


I still need to knit the band on the hood and neck opening and the applied I-cord at the hemline (I decided that this would be simpler than a provisional cast on followed by putting all the stitches back on a needle and doing an I-cord bind-off. I also have both sleeves to do.


This knitting has now been interrupted by a couple of other projects (more on which later...) but should be back on the needles fairly soon.