A Pair of Socks

I started these socks as a travelling project at the beginning of August and finished them Saturday. That is good for me. I like mindless knitting for toting around, so often my sock projects languish for months waiting for me to have an uninterrupted hour to turn the heel. I make a lot less mistakes that way!


I bought the yarn for these socks several years ago, when the owner of an almost local yarn shop was retiring. It is Fortissima Colori Socka Color yarn from Schoeleer Stahl. I bought it before I was into dyeing most of my own stuff. Once I actually started to knit it, I decided that I wasn't very fond of the colors. Each sock doesn't even have two full color repeats in the yarn. It is 75% superwash wool, 25% nylon. I find that I love the socks that I have made out of handspun, but that I am constantly darning the holes I wear much too quickly in the bottom. One of these days I am going to experiment with blending nylon top into my wool with a drumcarder before I spin. Too much work goes into handspun socks for them to not last a really long time! Until then, I will continue to use commercial yarns to knit socks.

Back to these socks, the pattern is from Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch. I used the chevron pattern from the chapter "Cheveron Patterns for Self-Striping Yarns". I really like how the cheverons break up the stripes a little. The pattern had a two row repeat, so it was easy to remember. The socks had a "forethought heel" which is an afterthought heel planned for and done as you go along. So far, it is not my favorite heel to knit, but it is always good to try something new.

My daughter loves these socks, and since they are for her, it's all good. (Doesn't she have cute feet?)

On Saturday, I posted a "Magic Yarn Ball" on Etsy. It is a 100g. ball of hand dyed wool with surprises wrapped in as you go along. They fall out as you knit (or crochet). It was fun for me to make. We'll see if anyone likes it! It is in the colorway "marine" which is shades of blue and green. As always, you can reach my Etsy store by clicking the "Hollow Brook Handmade" link at the top.

PINK HANDSPUN DONE!

I just posted my latest handspun yarn on Etsy. It has been a lot of fun to make. It is so soft. My daughter wants me to give it to her so she can feel it whenever she wants. I have been knitting some socks with commercial sock yarn, and I was amazed at the contrast in texture when I knitted the handspun swatch. It really is nice yarn.

Hopefully I will get better at organizing my pictures as time goes on! To the right (and below) is the hand dyed roving drying last week. There is also a skein of dk weight yarn on the bottom, and felted mittens on the top. It is always hard to wait for the roving to dry after I dye it. I can't wait to spin it and see how it's really going to turn out!

Below is a lovely picture of the roving in the sink getting rinsed. I have to be very careful at this stage to not felt the wool.

I was going to post a picture of my actual spinning wheel in action, but I forgot to have someone snap a picture. I will do it with the next yarn, for sure!

New Handspinning project

Looks like my yarn picture from the last post did show up!







Two days ago I handpainted some roving that I had on hand. I divided it in half and did two colorways. The first is a blue-white-violet-navy repeat, the other is a blue-pink-navy repeat.





This picture shows one of the rovings painted, and ready to wrap and steam.

Yesterday morning I divided the rovings up. The pink one I pulled apart along the blue and navy divisions. I have been spinning these little fiber bundles from the fold. It makes a yarn with a lot of depth. So here is a photo of my little fiber piles from both rovings.

I also started spinning yesterday. I should have yarn pictures to post in the next few days!

Yarn experiment

This yarn is something that I have wanted to try for a few years. Now that my kids are all in school, I am getting to a lot of projects that have been waiting in the wings. I haven't been spinning much this year, and it is great to have some time to do it.

One ply of this handspun yarn is Bluefaced Leicester wool from Louet, the other ply is silk, from predrafted silk hankies. Both plies are softly spun, and a bit fuzzy, with the wool being much to loose in some places. The yarn is very soft. I have wanted to see the sheen of the silk next to the wool texture. It is a nice contrast in this yarn, but the silk has quite a bit of texture on its own, because of the preparation. I will have to try it again with a silk brick and more twist to maximize the difference.

I waited to dye the yarn until after it was plied. I wanted to see how the different fibers reacted in the same dye bath. I know that silk has a strong affinity for dye, but it was very interesting what happened. I was using a roasting pan (that I use only for dying) and I heated the water, vinegar, and yarn up to just below boiling. Then I poured the fuschia dye in- but only in certain spots. At that temp the dye usually strikes fairly quickly and you can get some great effects. After the fuschia, I added some blue in other spots. Instead of getting pink spots and blue spots, I got pink silk and blue wool. Very few areas look truely purple, which is surprising...

Here may or may not be a lovely picture of the dyed yarn. I have been having some trouble uploading the picture, and currently can only see the dreaded "x". I will try again tomorrow.

Alien tie dye

I wanted to show a picture of one of my favorite things to dye. This is from a long sleeved t-shirt that I have for sale on Etsy, in a youth size 14. I can do this on almost any t-shirt or fabric, as long as it isn't too small. I made one for my son, and it is one of his favorite shirts.

It is amazing how much fun you can have with some white fabric, and a few bottles of dye... It was fun how the mouth turned out. The dye travelled in just the right way. It is hard to actually plan stuff like that.

Etsy store

I've opened an etsy account to sell handmade stuff. This is an exciting move for me! Later this week I will post some of the yarns and clothing that I have hand dyed. If you haven't checked out etsy.com you should. They sell hand made items. There are lots of neat things there!

My etsy store is http://www.dye4fun.etsy.com/