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Zombies Done

Zombies are finished

I’m immensely pleased with how well I spun up zombies on my wheel, I managed to get all of the yarn on just one bobbin with one bobbin with some of the singles left over. I have only had that happen to me two other times before on my spinning whee. Those two yarns were the very first ones that I did on my Juliet spinning wheel.

Besides managing to get all of the two bobbins(minus a little bit) on to just one bobbin. I apparently managed to get roughly 721 yards out of the four ounces. I guess I got lace-weight instead of fingering weight like I was aiming for, oops. I have yet to wash the hank of yarn to calculate how much yards are going to loss due to the setting of the twist.

I’m not sure I want to go trough the process of re-skeining the yarn and recalculating how much yardage there is after washing it. So, I’m going to guess at the moment that after washing I’ll have anywhere from 613 to 649 yards to play with.

Zombies Singles

This evening I finished up spinning the second batch of zombies single. I hope I managed to spin these singles with a wpi in the range of 36-40 since I didn’t do has much checking of the wpi against my spinner’s control card as I did for the first batch of singles.

Both of the bobbins appear to have about the same amount of singles on them. One might have a bit more but that one I may not have been sliding the hook has much as the other one.

I can’t wait to ply of the singles to see which colors dominate in the plied yarn. Both of the bobbins ended with a dark color one deep teal the other a mixture of teal and what appears to be dark brown in color.

Amphora Socks

I would like to announce my first pattern that I have written and have published through my ravelry online shop, Amphora Socks. The socks were my entry into the Socks Revived Contest that was held by Elinor over at Exercise before knitting. I put my socks up on ravelry about a month ago, shortly after I submitted my design to the contest I realized that I ought to put into my pattern written instructions for the leg and the foot panels. It took me awhile to be happy with the written instructions for the foot panels. Now that I have a written and a charted version of my pattern done and the written instructions upload to ravelry I thought it was high time that I announce my pattern.

So without further ado my first designed socks.

The socks are knit from the top-down featuring a picot edge cuff, the lace pattern is fairly easy and quite easy to memorize. They feature a slip-stitch heel flap with a garter ridge selvage edge, for easy pick up for the gusset. These socks are a great for the intermediate knitter or the adventurous beginner.

Sizes: Women’s small, medium and large. The socks are able to fit up circumferences up to 7(8.5, 10) inches.
Needles:

• US 2(2.75mm) double-pointed needles or size needed to obtain gauge.
• US 1 (2.25mm) double-pointed needles or size needed to obtain gauge.

Gauge: 32 sts and 44 rows = 4 inches in stockinette stitch, with larger needles.
Yarn: approx. 350-400 yards of fingering weight yarn. Used in photo: Araucania Ranco Multi in the colorway Pizzaz.
Notions: waste yarn, tapestry needle, stitch maker (optional), and crochet hook(optional).

Skills needed: provisional cast-on, knitting in the round, simple lace and reading charts.

Price $4

PS – It completely slipped my mind to mention that raverly gives you the choice between downloading the regular pattern and the written pattern to download, or download both.

Halfway There

Lime Sock #1

Yesterday was a day of completing the first part of my on going projects the lime socks and the spinning up zombies.

Last night I cast-off on the first of lime socks. Over the weekend  I had a bit of a problem with doing the heel with the instructions I came up with for the heel. I needed an extra round in the heel turn that I originally didn’t put in.

I really in the joy the ease of ripping out the heel of a toe-up sock with the heel being done using short rows. All I have to do is rip out the short rows and I’m backing to square one with very little dropped stitches occurring from ripping back.

I’m thinking of calling these socks limeade but I’m not sure since I just discovered that there really is a drink called limeade which lemonade made with limes instead of lemons. I don’t know if I want my socks to be named after a drink.

Zombies half done

Now, I’ll interrupt talking about my lime socks to talk about my hand-spinning up zombies. I have managed yesterday to get the first 2 ounces done and will be starting on the second half soon.

I managed to spin the first half of the zombies singles with wpi (wraps per inch) in the 36 to 40 range. I’m hoping when I spin up the second half and get the same range for wpi that when plied together I’ll get somewhere near fingering weight yarn.

Zombies and Socks

I decided on Wednesday’s I’ll post about my works in progress to get me on a good blogging schedule. I’ll at least try to have a new post every Wednesday I  don’t know if I can guarantee it. At the moment, I have one spinning and one knitting project on the go.

zombies on spindle

My spinning project is spinning up the August 2009, spunky eclectic club colorway Zombies. I started spinning up the fiber on my new laceweight spindle that I got from Sara of Knot my Day Job, but switched to my spinning wheel when I started to have problems with the singles that I was spinning breaking. I managed to fill the spindle pretty full and only managed to put about a fourth of half of the fiber on to the spindle at least sight-wise it seemed that way. According to the scale, I had I think if  I remember correctly about an ounce of packed fiber on the spindle.

Zombies and Julia

Instead of starting a plying ball with what I spun up on the spindle, I decided the easiest thing to do was to transfer the yarn from the spindle to a bobbin on my spinning. After transferred the singles to the wheel bobbin I decided I’ll just finish spinning up the fiber using my spinning wheel. So, I’m slowly but surely spinning up some zombie singles in the 36 to 40 wpi (wraps per inch) range, I’m hoping to get around sock weight yarn when I ply it with a second bobbin when I finish the first. It takes me about an hour to spin up a tuff of fiber that I pull from the top, I’m hoping I can finish spinning the singles and get the plying done before the end of the month.

lime colored socks

The knitting project that I have on the needles is a pair of socks or I should say a sock that will one day of a mate. I’m working the socks from the toe up. The pattern for the sock is my own, I’m about half an inch away from starting the gusset increases, I should be able to get to gusset and heel before the week is out.  I’m knitting the socks up in a green color that makes me think of limes and margarita’s, the color reminds me of limes and when I think of limes of think of margarita’s.

Handspun Socks

Pattern: Slip Stitch Heel Basic Socks by Wendy D. Johnson.
Yarn: my handspun that I spun from a roving by Funky Carolina in the colorway Michelle.
Needles: US 1.50 (2.50mm)
Measurements: Size small.
Started Finished: May 4, 2010
Finished: May 25, 2010

I managed to get 8 stitches per inch on US 1.5 (2.50mm) sock needles, my needles that size happen to get a lot of use considering that’s the needle size that I get gauge with for socks most often. It take my about three weeks to make this pair of socks, I didn’t really have a desire to knit when I had a cold a couple of weeks ago.

I used up the bigger ball of yarn, that had 227 yards for the first sock and about half an inch to inch shy of the ribbing on the second sock. I lucked out with the colors at the end of first ball and the beginning of the sock ball and had them both be in the same color range making the transition to the new ball unnoticeable.

Goodies in the Mail

New spindle and zombies

Today in the mail, the spindle I ordered from Sara of Knot My Day Job arrived along with some goodies that were quickly eaten up, yummy cookies. The spindle is my first lace weight spindle and I decided to spin up the August 2009 spunky club offering zombies with the spindle.

I’m hoping when I ply up the yarn I will be able to get something within the fingering weight area. I’m aiming on spinning myself some sock yarn with a couple of the super-wash club offerings I have received so far. My recent spinning have yield yarn in the sport weight and thicker territory.

What a Yarn – Day 7 of Crochet and Knitting Blog week

Today is the last day of Crochet and Knitting blog week, so far I have only managed to post half of week. Oh well, that’s ok I have been struggling to come up with what to write about on the topics of the blog posts. Well, today’s topic is favorite yarn.

One of my favorite yarns to knit with is my hand-spun. I like seeing the color transitions occur in the knitted fabric because you don’t really know what to expect until you knit with the yarn. The first time I worked with my handspun yarn was last year for Christmas. I was aiming for a worsted weight three-ply yarn and wound up with a gauge of about 3.5 stitches per inch on size 8 needles. Yikes, I made a dense yarn. Go

Selfish, Spunky Club June 2009

od thing, I made a hat and a pair of mittens for my teenage niece. I was very bad I neglected to get pictures of the yarn and the finished projects.

So far I have only managed to gift the items that I made from my hand-spun. This past Christmas I made a scarf for my mom and sister using handspun that I made from fiber from the spunky club. I made my sister morning surf from selfish the June 2009 club offering. I also made a scarf featuring the invisible rib stitch pattern in Rolling Hills the September 2009 club offering. Sadly, I don’t have a picture of either of those finished objects. I hope that having have this blog would help me to better document my finished projects.

I also hope one day soon to cast on for a project for myself using some of my handspun yarn.

One Great Knitter – Day 3 of Knitting and Crochet Blog week

I’m thinking maybe I should skip this day of the blog week because I have no idea what to write about. One would think it should be easy to write about when one knows which knitter they admire the most. But it isn’t, I want to write something said knitter that is truly amazing but I can’t think of a damn thing to write about. So, I’ll leave you with a name, Anne Hanson.

French Quarter

Now since I left my very few readers, if there are any with a name I am going to turn this post into one about my sole knitting project on the needle. Since this is a knitting blog and it’s lacking in knitting project content. My one and only project that is on the needles at the moment is the second French Quarter sock. I’m making the socks for my mom for mother’s day in Fearless Fibers Superwash Merino in the colorway Earthenware. I originally bought the yarn for myself to knit a pair of socks, but my mom wanted socks that would go good with the color brown and I thought the yarn would go good with brown.

I really like the pattern that I chose to knit my mom’s socks. I’ll have to make a pair of French Quarter socks for myself one day, not right away. I didn’t really have an troubles with the cables, I just thought on the first sock on the leg portion that I finished a row halfway through, resulting in tinking up half the stitches to knit the right row across those stitches. I found the heel stitches a bit confusing only because I’m used to slipping every other stitch on the knit side and not the purl side.

I know my mom would love the socks, she already told be she liked them when I had her try on the first sock to make sure it fit her foot. I was concern since it fit on my foot feeling only slightly big in length. They fit my mom just fine. Now, all I have to is get the sock down in time for mother’s day.