Improving Spinning

Just a quick post today, as I'm elbow deep in finishing my epic Golden Wheat Shawl in time for Vicki & James' wedding next week.

I've been waiting for a skein of handspun to dry in order to take some good pictures, although my phone seems to be playing up so I apologise for the quality of the later ones. It's made from a batt I got from Jan at Spinning a Yarn, although as it was a teaching pack I pursuaded her to sell me I'm not sure of the fibre content, I think it's mostly BFL however.

It started out lookin like this;

Deep blue with white intermixed. Gorgeous. It was a dream to spin, and actually wanted to be finer than I'd done before (unlike the merino top I had to fight with to draft!)

Singles:

Then spun together into a 2 ply;


I don't have a WPI gauge but I'm pretty sure it's about a standard 4-ply weight (US sportweight) and is by far the finest thing I've ever spun. I seem to be getting progressively better at this spinning malarkey!

And as proof of that (taking my scientist hat off with that statement) I've started spinning up some fibre I got from Artist's Palette Yarns that I'm suspicious might be perfect, it is superwash afterall, to make some yummy sock yarn with!

Knit Nation Saturday!!

Ok, so I know 3 blog posts in one day is truely shocking blogging practice, but by the time I have time to post again (Summer Project deadline looming...) we both may have forgotten all about it!

Saturday started with a leisurely morning recovering from all the festivaling of the day before. I wandered over to Knit Nation at about half past one in time for the raffle draw, Congrats to all the winners (and boy, weren't there lots of lovely prizes!) but no joy for me.

I then went to Anne Hanson's Advanced Lace Knitting class. Anne works for/is Knitspot (I'm not sure exactly), a blog/website I sometimes frequent, and interestingly for me has many years experience working as a pattern cutter, which is what Andrew does (sometimes!) I decided to take this class as being a left-hander in a right hander's world I was hoping for some special hints and tips to take my stitching to the next level. Anne was a very interesting teacher, and her discussion of lace forms and the importance of swatching was excellent, I never realised quite how different yarns of the same WPI can look with the same stitch pattern can look! Lessen well and truly learnt there. I don't know if it was a time issue or if it was because it was the 6th class she taught at Knit Nation, but not all the techniques mentioned on the website were covered, and I think it was just my bad luck I'd done most of the one's that were, so I probably didn't learn all that much about actually knitting lace! However, that's beside the point when you consider how much fun I had chatting to other knitters.

After the class I went for dinner with a girl I met in the class and then we ventured to the Ravelry party. As many have said this was a real highlight of Knit Nation and I met some wonderfully interesting people. Not least Jen, the tech editor of The Knitter, my very favourite magazine, and who's shawl I am knitting at the moment (see Shawl's Galore for more on this).

She was totally awesome and incredibly happy to see my shawl, which of course made me incredibly happy! I dropped a hint that the magazine should publish a photo of the finished object (when it actually is finished!) and have me win the letter prize - which was not met with as much resistance as I'd expected (although no definite on the prize yet!)

I then went on to meet two of the knitting world's biggest celebrities. One of the things I find about getting older (if you can say approaching 23 is getting older) is I am increasingly shameless. Such as that is I achieved this (sorry about the double chin);

and this;


Which was totally awesome! For those of you not in the Ravelry know (and really, why not??) these two kind and jetlagged people are Casey and Jess, two of the 4 wonderful people behind Ravelry.com, the website that links all us knitters together so that amazing events like Knit Nation can even take place. I love this website, and in a final desperate leap of shamelessness such that I may have become so uncool I've been through the being almost cool again stage and come right out on the other side of stinking, pointed and laughed at, L on my forehead, uncool, loserdom, I got Jess and Casey to autograph my Knit Nation bag for forever. Yay.


Bob is the dog mascot of Ravelry. Who is great.

Following the party's frivolities I went home, looked at all my purchases,


and went to bed happy. :)

Knit Nation Friday!!

So it was Knit Nation last weekend, and my first experience of a festival for serious knitters. I was desperately looking forward to it and have been mentally stashing away money for weeks, maybe even months! I'd initially planned on only going to the marketplace on Saturday, but as the day grew near and the excitement began to build I decided to go to a class too so I could shop on both days.

The occaision was held in the lovely Sherfield Building at Imperial College London;


I arrived well before opening on Friday expecting a ton of people to be elbowing for first spot but I must say it was all very restrained until about 5 minutes before opening time, when there was a huge rush to join the queue! I headed straight over to Wollmeise at the back of the marketplace and broke my Wollmeise virginity (as is apparently the phrase) grabbing some stunning Golden Pear laceweight and 2 skeins of sock (which is far too nice for socks!) The rush was mainly due to some ultimately unnecessary fears about the provision/non-provision of "top-ups" to the stall and the great fear of all the good stuff selling out early! I'd googled before arrival and had a mental list of about 10 colours I wanted to see in person and as the Golden Pear was at the top of the list I left pleased as punch!


Then I did my usual walk-round-the-room-four-times-before-deciding-what-you-want walk, which as the room was only average size, and not all that busy at this point, gained me some rather strange looks! Eventually the copious spending began and within an hour I ended up with this:

At which point I felt a little like a cow trying to force it's way through the ever increasing crowd. So I went home briefly before RUSHING off to Knebworth to attend Sonisphere, which Andrew and I were very kindly gifted guest passes to by my best-friend-from-school Kieran. His band, You and What Army, were playing as part of some competition with RedBull, and I can quite honestly say were totally awesome! Anyone who knows me will tell you I rarely talk about music because I don't exactly have the best of tastes (as Sue Sylvester says; "Liking show tunes doesn't make you gay, it just makes you awful") but in this case you really should believe me, even Andrew really liked them, and he is a far from easy man to please! Their sound is kind of rap-emo-fun, and I can totally see it being really popular, as it sounds current and slides in nicely alongside several chart bands of the moment. They've also played/are playing Download, T in the Park, Underage, Hevy Festival, so it's a very good time for them.

After that shameless promotion here's a picture of 4 handsome gents;

Andrew, Kieran, Kieran's friend Dave, Kieran's friend Dave's friend (oops, can't remember his name!)

After this we headed home very tired for a good night's sleep before a busy Knit Nation Saturday!

Spin, Knit, Wear

I bought this 100% merino top at the Stitch and Craft Show in March;

I spindle spun the purple and wheel spun the teal, then plied to make a barberpole;

And then I knitted it into a hat;

(Another Slouchy Hat by SleepyCat)

And then I put it on my head!

Fleece, fleece, fleece

I've been really getting into spinning lately (always one for a new challenge) and so, as a treat to myself following payday, I took the liberty of purchasing a spinning wheel. On ebay. From Yorkshire. As this has turned out to be a somewhat protracted delivery, I have currently received this much of my wheel.



I should stress, that in no way is this the fault of the lovely seller, or Royal Mail, but the courier should be quaking in his boots.

You may notice that amongst the pieces of wheel lies a lazy kate with 3 very nice looking bobbins and a book. These were generously given to me by the seller as part of a spinning clear out of her house. I have no idea what she was thinking but I'm very grateful! Additionally, I received 2 whole, raw fleeces. Having only been spinning for a few months, and spinning combed tops almost exclusively, this amounted to something of a challenge.

Remember what I said about challenges?

Here is the fleece, fresh from the bag.



It looks massive because it was. Following a whole bunch of scouring the net and reading my spinning books I realised

1) Life would be a lot easier if I was American and had a top loading washing machine (similar issue with felting)

2) I was best off making it up as I went along.

As every source I consulted said to use as hot water as I could stand I purchased some washing up gloves to help me. Sources seemed to disagree about detergents, some suggesting washing-up liquid, some baby shampoo. I plumped for what seemed like the middle ground suggestion and went for greasy hair shampoo. I filled the bath half full with hot water, added a whole lot of shampoo (afterwards, apparently suds are bad) and then in went the fleece.



Which then came out as I drained the water and washed the bath, and then went back in;




and repeat;



and repeat;



At which point I ran out of shampoo. Which was fine, because it is pretty much clean. I'm hoping that any last bits of muck will come out in the carding process. It's now drying flat in the kitchen on a sheet as we don't have any outside space. Seems to be drying well. This picture doesn't really do it justice, it's a lot whiter than it looks.



So just to check that it's all running smoothly, I gave a little bit a card and finger spun a bit. To be honest, I feel like this is a pretty awesome moment.



xxxx

Shawls galore!

So there's not been much to report of late, a lot of finishing off socks and a (potentially) wasted attempt at making a bag. That being said, I can announce that something for next year's MODO show has been completed. Oooooooooo! A sneak peak image coming soon!

This post however is dedicated to a little technical exercise I have recently completed that I'm pretty proud of. I have a subscription to The Knitter magazine, and this months issue contains the absolutely beautiful "Golden Wheat Shawl". I was instantly in love, however, despite having done a fair bit of lace knitting in my time, I had never yet knitted a shawl. Trawling the depths of the Ravelry shawl database led me to the outstandingly pretty "Percy Shawl". I set about knitting it using Berrocco Alpaca Fine, a lovely yarn, unsurprisingly alpaca based, that I had almost all of a skein left of following the making of some socks earlier in the year. It made up incredibly quickly, taking less than a week and I must say I'm pretty pleased with the result.










And as for the Golden Wheat Shawl......



Speak soon!!

Nathania Dress

Last week I was sent an email by a friend of mine asking about local places to buy interesting knitwear. Seeing as I don't tend to buy it anymore I didn't have a heap of suggestions (Topshop does not count as a useful suggestion!) and asked her if she could tell me specifically what she was after. She told me that she was feeling inspired by Finnish knitwear label I Know Why No . Their stuff is rather different from the stuff I normally make, but I like to respond to a challenge. The basic idea was to create a very simple, super-openwork dress. I thought about the yarn and realised quickly that something spun simply wasn't going to stand up to the strain of a whole dress pulling on it without stretching out disastrously. Plus, I had a craving to use some ribbon yarn.

I decided to use Colinnette Giotto in Mushroom. I had to order online, direct from Colinnette, and I must say it arrived very quickly, was excellent value for money, and all in all was lovely to work with. I think the dress ended up looking pretty great and I'm really pleased with how it fits the "brief".



The pattern is extrordinarily simple, basically a glorified garter stitch, although I wouldn't recommend it as a first project as the 20mm needles are a bit cumbersome and the shoulder seams are grafted.

Finished Measurements: 36inches/92cm from shoulder to hem; 18inches/46cm across unstretched. Due to the extreme size of the stitches, these are only guides for the flat garment. This is definitely a "one size fits all" design.

Materials: 1 pair US 36/20mm knitting needles. 2x100g skeins of Colinnette Giotto in Mushroom. I used approximately 120g/170m of yarn, unfortunately this did require starting the second skein, however this could definitely be a 1 skein project if one or two of the pattern repeats are skipped. Tapestry needle. Stitch holder.

Gauge: 10 sts/2 rows = 6"(15cm) square. Gauge is far from critical for this project.

CO 30 sts using backward loop method. This is important as a tight cast on will lead to puckering around the hem and a poor fit.

1st Row: Knit
2nd Row: Knit
3rd Row: Wrap yarn once round needle, k1 *wrap yarn three times around needle, k1* Repeat to end.
4th Row: Wrap yarn once round needle, k1 *drop 3 stitches wrapped in previous row, k1* Repeat to end, dropping the single loop created at the very end of the row.
5th Row. 3rd Row: Wrap yarn once round needle, k1 *wrap yarn three times around needle, k1* Repeat to end, dropping the single loop created at the very end of the row.
6th Row: Wrap yarn once round needle, k1 *drop 3 stitches wrapped in previous row, k1* Repeat to end, dropping the single loop created at the very end of the row.

Repeat rows 5 and 6 an additional 4 times so that 6 elongated rows and 6 "recovery rows" have been completed.





Next Row: Wrap yarn once around needle, k1 [wrap yarn three times around needle, k1] x9, bind off 10 stitches (you will end up knitting 11 stitches so that there is 1 stitch left on right hand needle), [wrap yarn three times around needle, k1] x9.



Transfer stitches to a stitch holder, dropping the extra loops in the process so that two sets of 10 stitches remain. These will become the shoulders. Leaving a long tail (~30cm) cut yarn. This is the front/back. Repeat until a second set of 2x10 stitches has been achieved. Transfer the front and back pieces onto needles so that the left and right shoulder pieces are aligned and each side has a length of yarn hanging from it. Using this yarn, graft (using Kitchener stitch) the two shoulders together. Grafting is beneficial to a seam in this instance as any seam in such a loose fabric risks showing clearly when stretched, as a shoulder seam would be. As the side seams will not be under tension, these can be easily woven together (very loosely) and will disguise themselves in the drape of the garment. Using a tapestry needle, stitch through the ribbon yarn to hold the ends in place, in running stitch along the yarn and cut short, leaving ~1cm security.




Blocking is, of course, unnecessary in this instance. It is recommended that the garment is stored flat in tissue paper or securely on a hanger. When wearing it, it will readily snag despite some resistance from within the yarn. This is easily fixed by pulling the garment back into shape, although care is recommended.



This is my first pattern write up and thus it is possible that there are errors. Please do not hesitate to leave a comment and I will try to resolve and confusion or errors as soon as possible.

MichaelaKnits.

New Blog!

Wow, so after months of going on and on about how much I need a website and how much I need to sort out my knitting into a coherent record of what I do (thank you Ravelry for the short term!) I have finally begun this blog. Hooray!

So, who am I and why should you be interested in anything I have to say?

I'm Michaela and I'm currently in London studying for my MRes (basically an MSc) in Mathematical Biology, have an undergraduate degree in Evolutionary Biology and will be starting my PhD in some field of interest (still not sure what yet!) in September. However, some would say more importantly, I am an avid knitter and designer, and can be found with needles in my hands at virtually all times.

In the last six months I have been approached by Academy Costumes and Jean Pierre Braganza and asked to knit. For London Fashion Week in February 2010 I knitted this for Jean Pierre;




Which was fun. And exciting (pretty much the best moment of my life ever but I try to be cool about it!) Particularly when I realised that Erin O'Connor, the editor of Italian Vogue, an editor from Elle (eep, can't remember who!), Pixie Geldof and Jaime Wistone were in attendance to watch my dress on the catwalk!

I'm really fortunate to go to such a wonderful university as University College London. We have a fantastic fashion society known as MODO that enables designers from within the university to showcase their designs in an annual show. The website can be found here, and the fashion blog, which is excellent, here. This year I was only able to make two dresses, as the show was held only a week after fashion week, but these led to rave reviews, with images of my second dress being published in almost every promotional article, including the UCL's Pi Magazine and The Hub Magazine

The first was an interpretation of phylogenetic trees (also known as ancestory trees), that involved creating a lace pattern to represent trees and large shoulders with DNA inspired cabling (Free Patterns Coming Soon!). These were sewn into a jersey dress over a knitted bra from a pattern in Knitting Lingerie Style adapted for DK weight yarn and 4mm needles.



The second was inspired by cells, the building block of life, and was created using the same dropped stitch (I love dropped stitches) used to make the dress for fashion week. The dress is intended to be worn over a slip, otherwise very little will be left to the imagination! The back of the dress has a surprise too! This will be available for purchase on Ravelry as soon as I figure out how that works!



In the last couple of months I've been making a heap of socks, mittens, iPhone socks and swatches for things for the future, as well as learning how to spin. More on these to follow, plus some exciting new design projects to share!