A Miracle!

Surely a sign of the upcoming apocalypse or, on a more positive note, a miracle of some sort. I've actually spun and plied some roving in the same month in which I purchased it!

Navajo plying: color transition

Back at the beginning of May, I went to Maryland Sheep and Wool and battled the crowded Fiber Optic Yarns booth to pick up some merino/silk blend gradient roving. I selected a lovely blue gradient, going from a very light sky blue progressing to a midnight blue-black. A stunning red to black gradient also leaped into my bag.

A weeks ago, I started spinning the blue gradient. After a couple of color changes, I got smart and worked out a system for managing the color transitions. I tried to break the braid apart into 12-18" pieces in a spot where the colors changed. Then, after separating out the larger piece of roving into smaller, more manageable strips, I began spinning the tips of each strip where the already spun color was. When I hit the next color, I stopped and went to the next strip of roving. That gave me a nicer color transition.

I was focused on spinning fine singles, but not cobweb thin. I wanted to end up at a decent fingering-ish weight yarn after plying. I'd already decided to Navajo ply to maintain the color transitions. I'm not a big fan of barber-poling handspun. I also focused on not including a lot of twist in my singles. Previously, I've tended to over-twist my singles resulting in those little pigtailing sections. Consistency was my watch word.

In what felt like record time, I was ready to ply. In the past, I've had my singles snap on me at thin spots. This time, I was pleased to get through plying with only 1 breakage. Noticeable improvement is always encouraging!

Final transition to light blue.

I really enjoyed watching the color changes. I kept my treadling slow and steady and moved my hands deliberately, trying to keep the yarn plying in a consistent manner.

Surprisingly (or not), the plying took several hours which I managed with only 1 break to answer the door.

I really love my Woolee Winder for enabling me to focus on spinning instead of moving my yarn manually along the bobbin. The only 'issue' was that I didn't get to see the color transitions progress up the bobbin. Each color gets covered up by the new color. But I won't complain!

I decided to let the plied yarn rest on the bobbin for 24 hrs - more because I forgot to skein it before going to bed than due to any patience on my part.

On Sunday I wound it onto my niddy noddy, valiantly attempted to keep track of how many times I wrapped it so I could estimate yardage.

On the niddy noddy, waiting for a bath

I'm pretty sure it's around 260 yards of 3 ply yarn. And doesn't it look darn pretty wound up like that?

I've also learned to not wind it so tightly on the niddy noddy. Makes it much easier to remove the yarn.







Here it is, waiting for its bath:

I'm extremely proud of this skein. It turned out very well balanced, with very few pig tail corkscrews. I think it needs to be a shawl.

I'm looking forward to spinning up my other Fiber Optic braid and seeing the red to black transition.

Mystery of the Blue Train

I don't usually post about a design until it's ready to be released. But I'm really excited about this one for several reasons. It's going to be hard to squish all the back story onto the pattern page on Ravelry, so I thought I'd dedicate a blog post to the story of these socks.

There is a distinct left and right foot,
with the Train pattern running down the
outer front of the sock.

Blue Train, as I'll call these socks for short, was inspired by the Agatha Christie novel The Mystery of the Blue Train. It's going to be the fifth of six in my Hercule Poirot design series.

I was browsing through my stitch dictionaries and flagging photos which caught my eye. Then I went back and tried to find commonalities and that 'spark' of inspiration.

I love the look of twisted stitches, so the motif which became the front of the sock naturally caught my eye. It reminded me of train tracks, which got my imagination churning away. A number of Christie's novels involve train journeys, so these titles naturally started coming to mind. In addition to train tracks, the 'parallelogram' shapes made me think of the sleeper compartments on trains, with the twisted stitches representing the passengers (and the bobbles in the original motif being the passengers' heads).

Okay, so I had a train story. But what else? I didn't want to simply create a sock with a motif taken straight out of a book. I wanted to make it more 'mine'. But it had to make sense. It couldn't just be "more" without making sense to the design and intent of the overall Poirot series.

Back of the sock.
Strands of a jeweled necklace.

Looking back over the motifs I'd tagged with a sticky note, one seemed to stand out. It had cables - bringing it in line with what I'd picked out for the front of the sock. Ditto the twisted stitches.

To top it all off, it made me think of the strands of a jeweled necklace. All the pieces slid into place and I had "The Mystery of the Blue Train" in which the famous ruby necklace, "Heart of Fire" is stolen and its owner murdered on her way to the French Riviera. The Blue Train was the name of the regular train which brought the English elite down to the French Riviera.

I set about tweaking the motifs, adjusting a few things here and there. I wanted this design to accommodate several official sizes as well as being totally customizable for anyone who wanted to adjust it for their personal foot size. I decided to put the stitch patterns on a stocking stitch background - that would make the total number of stitches very customizable. Not every design I document is 100% customizable (it depends on the stitch counts), but I really do want (and expect) people to be able to customize them if they need to.

5 stitch nupp option.

The original stitch patterns called for bobbles as the passengers' heads. But from browsing Ravelry forums I realize that not everyone likes bobbles. Plus, I didn't want bobbles on my socks. So I experimented with a 5 stitch nupp. It didn't add as much bulk, which was good. But something was missing (and I recalled many Ravelry posts bemoaning the difficulty of doing nupps).

One morning, as I was getting ready for the day, I was thinking about the design and pondering bobble/nupp alternatives. Then it hit me - beads! Giving knitters the choice of a nupp or adding a bead would be perfect! I'm all about choice/modifications in my designs. Plus, the beads would align perfectly with the whole jewelry robbery theme. To maintain a sense of balance (and belabour the jewelry analogy) I added beads to the cabled necklace pattern on the back of the sock.

Beads!

The reason I'm so pleased with the bead idea is the fact that I am not a bead person when it comes to knitting. I've done one or two beaded shawls, and I think they look lovely. But it's not a natural choice for me. So in a small way, the very idea represented a moment of growth for me as a designer.

The cables themselves are a bit unusual and may seem intimidating when you look at the sheer variety of cables in the pattern's stitch definitions. But they're all variations of 1/2 and 2/1 cables. The variations are the result of knitting each of the 3 cable stitches either through the back of the loop, purling them, or just plain knitting them - it all depends on the flow of the overall pattern. If you know how to read your knitting and can read a chart, it will quickly make sense to you. Being able to read the charts isn't a necessity though. Just take your time with the different cables and it'll come together.

So there you have it - the story behind "The Mystery of the Blue Train" socks. They're in test knit now and should be released in mid-late June. As usual, they'll be available in toe up and cuff down, in 3 sizes. Beads, nupps or neither as you prefer.

Side view

Inside view.

Just a quickie

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. But I did go to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival (MDSW) in West Friendship, Maryland this past weekend. My brain is still reeling, trying to process all the new experiences and new acquaintances.

If you've never been to MDSW, it's like Rhinebeck but in the Spring. And if you've never been to either - image a massive Fair/Festival devoted to sheep, wool, yarn, spinning, knitting, crochet, crafts and yummy foods. With 40-50,000 of your closest fibery friends. It was 2 days of total immersion in the fiber arts.

Like I said - I'm still trying to process it all into coherent thoughts. Photos of my MDSW purchases in future posts!

Stunning Color Work

I've been very remiss in posting regularly over the past month. It's been a steady stream of test knits, sample knitting and pattern prep.

But yesterday one of my test knitters posted her photos of my most recent pattern: Intertwined Mitts. The pattern isn't specifically written for color work, but after seeing some stunning color work cable projects on Ravelry, I threw out the challenge to my test knitters.

The original pattern used indigodragonfly's CaribouBaa in the colorway "Daleks Don't Give out Pink Slips".

Photo copyright Maureen Foulds

And boy howdy, did HomeSpunLife ever deliver! Check out her gorgeous photos:

Photo copyright HomeSpunLife

Photo copyright HomeSpunLife

Photo copyright HomeSpunLife

Photo copyright HomeSpunLife

New Release: Roger Ackroyd socks

 Roger Ackroyd is now available!

Classic cables wind down the leg, reminiscent of warm, cozy sweaters worn on walks over the moors or out on the fishing boat. At the ankle, the main cables switch to ribbing while the 1/2 side cables continue down either side of the foot, and add detail to the toe.

When planning this pattern, I decided to place the cables only on the leg for two reasons: 1) the foot cables would be hidden by shoes and 2) I feared that the cables would make the socks too thick to fit inside shoes comfortably. While this might be an issue with plump, rounder yarns, test knitters who continued the cables all the way down the foot found this not to be the case.

I love that the test knitters had fun with this pattern, customizing it to suit their preferences. Several knitters continued the cables down the foot (just keep following the chart!), which looks fantastic. Others used a plain stocking stitch toe instead of the rib and cables. Some preferred simple 1/1 side cables instead of the 1/2 cables, turning that extra stitch into a purl.

This captures the essence of what I hope to achieve with my patterns. I provide the base and make it easy for less experienced knitters to create a great looking sock. At the same time, more experienced sock knitters can easily make those tweaks to suit their feet and knitting preferences.

E-book Details:

This pattern is part of an e-book series, The Agatha Christie Series, Volume 2 (The Poirot Collection). Follow along as I create designs inspired by Agatha Christie novels featuring Hercule Poirot.

This e-book represents a savings over purchasing the patterns separately. And the earlier you buy, the more you save. Six patterns will be delivered approximately every 6 weeks, with all patterns being delivered by the end of July 2014. Your Ravelry library will automatically be updated with the new patterns.

Buy in March & April 2014: $19
Buy in May & June 2014: $23

Total & Totally Blown Away

Things have been a little crazy around here the past few weeks as I work on wrapping up some designs before winter's end. (Ha! It feels like the warm weather will never arrive.)

But I just have to share the final results of the Olympic fundraising campaign which started with Bristol Ivy pledging part of her pattern sales to Lambda Legal and Equality Maine. Other designers joined in, pledging to support their chosen organizations; some local, some national or international.

Bristol just published the final tally. Tears came to my eyes and I got a lump in my throat when I read the amount.

$3042.97.

That's what you all accomplished by supporting this effort with your pattern purchases. Thank you all so much. And I'm so proud that my supporters were responsible for 8.5% of the final amount. The very thought is humbling, amazing and uplifting.

Knitters are good folk. Thank you all so much.

Results: Subtly Subversive Campaign

Well, the Olympics are finally over and we can all go back to our normal routines. And thank goodness - I'm not sure my heart and my nerves could have handled much more. Especially when it came to Canada's hockey games.

Before the Olympics, Bristol Ivy placed a call out to designers to see if anyone was interested in joining her in a campaign to raise funds for LGBTQ organizations during the Sochi Olympics, in response to Russia's anti-gay policies. And the designers responded.

So did knitters. I received many kind emails of support from fellow knitters, which was very heart-warming. I donated 75% of pattern sales on the Opening and Closing Ceremony days and 25% of sales on the days in between.

I'm proud to say that this morning, I donated a total of $280 Cdn to Egale.ca. It's not much on my own, but there are several other Canadian designers donating to Egale, so I'm hoping that  together we can make a difference. Donating to Egale are: Kate Atherley , Kim McBrien Evans of Indigodragonfly yarns, Natalie Servant, Kylie McDonnell-Wade,  Katherine Matthews, Lynne Sosnowski, Kathleen Sperling, and Christina Harris.

Bristol Ivy will be sharing results from designers on her blog shortly and I can't wait to see the final tally.

As for me, I felt pretty proud when I submitted my our donation this morning. And really, it was made possible by you lovely folks who generously bought patterns, either for yourselves or gifted them to others.

Thank you!