Monday, July 03, 2006

Socks and Rovings.

I worked up the ankle a bit on my Badcaul sock. And while it's lovely snug on my footsie, it's not so great on my heel and ankle. My shortrow heel was a bit sloppy and then it was tight around my lower ankle. I'm guessing I should have adjusted the pattern and used 60% of the stitches instead of the 50% the pattern uses. I know I have big ankles, and I should have thought of that. So, I have halted knitting Badcaul. I might do it with my Knitpicks Dancing yarn instead, since it has elastic in it and is more stretchy. And possibly use sz 2 needles instead of sz 1s.


So yesterday I said, "screw this!" and started a sock for shmoo instead. It's just a basic toe-up with the baby cable where you k2tog and then keep it on the needle and knit the first stitch and slide it all off every four rows.

Friday night we had our first spinning group meeting and I picked up some roving while I was there. I wanted something that wasn't green. Don't get me wrong, I love my green rovings, boht of them, but ... they are both green! So I picked up 2 ozs of marvelous purple! 3 ozs of wonderful intense blue, and 2 ozs of red/white/black. I picked up the red/white/black because I am curious how it will spin up with the way the roving is dyed and it has silk in it, which is new to me (so is the Alpaca in it as well). The purple is 20% mohair/80% wool. And I think the blue is all wool.

And here's a close-up of the multi-colored stuff.

And of course as soon as I got the purple, I started spinning on it. I was aiming for a heavy lace/fingering type weight. And I think I got there. I'm very pleased. This skein is about 54 yards, and is the longest yardage I have spun to date. I am thinking I'll have enough to do my second Flower Basket shawl with it if I keep going. Woot!

2 comments:

Amie said...

Your spinning looks terrific - that purple is lush!

The silk noil (which is different in texture than regular silk) will leave little bumpies - this is not a fault of the spinner, it's a characteristic of that fiber. That yarn will be gorgeous spun up - can't wait to see what you do with it!

See you tonight!

Stacey Rothchild said...

Oh my gosh! Such pretty roving!!!! Your sock looks good as well, even though you had to "readjust"....