A Few Sheep Shy of a Farm

Even though I haven’t posted for a while it hasn’t been because things were slow . . .

Around the “Farm”

We’ve had plenty of things happening lately.  Just after Easter we got our spring chick order. I got a small assortment of new layer hen chicks (11 in all) and we ordered some Cornish Roasters for the first time.  I’ve been truly amazed at how much faster the Roasters grow.  Here are the new chicks:

The chicks are now 7 weeks and while the laying hen chicks weigh about 3 lbs and will be going in with the rest of the hens shortly, the Roasters weigh about 6 lbs and in another 4-5 weeks will be ending their stay with us.  So far we have only lost one of them to the raccoon, though not for lack of trying on her part.

Family Stuff

Mimmo has been taking Karate for almost a year now and in March he earned his Yellow Belt.

Caterina went in for her first ever haircut just before Easter.   We wound up having bangs cut into her hair since it was constantly in her eyes and she refuses to leave barrettes in . . . we’ll grow them out again when she is a little older.

And our niece, Marianna, had her first Communion and turned 8 yrs old.

And Caterina had her 2nd Birthday.

Renovations

In the on-going home improvement department we have managed to perform a mini-makeover in the kitchen.  We’ve added a dishwasher (other than me) and in the process replaced the sink base, sink, faucet & counter top.  The work in nearly complete with some finish work (perhaps it will get done?) and a little bit of plumbing left to go.

Knitting & Spinning

All of this has left less time for projects than I’d like . . .but such is life with small children, right?  I have not worked on any more of the spinning for St. Brigid since my last post.  I hope to resume spinning, perhaps out in the yard, in the next couple weeks as we start spending more time outside.

I have all but finished the Must Have Cardigan.  I need to sew in the sleeves and sew the seams and add buttons but other than that the actual knitting is complete.  Once I have it sewn I’ll post a few pics.

However, while I was finishing up the Must Have I ran into a little, pint sized, snag.  Caterina decided she wanted it as her own.  The fact that it is far too big for her didn’t seem to matter, she laid claim to it!  Her insistence has inspired me to create a mini version which I’m calling the “Mini-Must-Have” in tribute to the original.   Her’s is nearly finished, I bound off the button band today and now need to sew in the sleeves, sew the sleeve and side seams and add buttons.  (sound familiar?).  I’ve also been working on writing this up to post as a free pattern on Ravelry.  I have it designed for sizes 2 through 12 and have 3 people who have agreed to test knit it once the instructions are finalized.  I’ll post a few pics of Caterina in hers as soon as its actually wearable.

And I’m working on another design project, a sweater I’m calling Simplicity.  Its a basic stockinette Cardi knit from sock yarn; perfect for those skeins of sock yarn that are just a little too colorful to show off the lace patterns of the other fingering weight Cardis out there.  The key with this sweater is the attention to detail . . . details I’ll share with you in a later post when the sweater is a bit more presentable.  Once this sweater and pattern are finished they will be available for sale on Ravelry as well.

I have a few more design ideas I’m working on but they are still in the early stages and not ready to be shared quite yet, but stay tuned for more!

St. Brigid

Like most of the things I try to get done, this process is happening rather slowly as my projects tend to come last on the list for the most part . . . so please bear with me as this is going to take a while to get though!

So I’m using a postage scale to weigh these out to be sure that I have the same amount of each.  I was going to blend 5g of each color, but my scale doesn’t like the number 5 so I’m blending 6 g. of each color for a total of 18 g. in each batt.   The carder ends up pretty full but by blending them with 4 passes through the carder I am able to get a nice even final color.

The carder is an Ashford and while it is on the small side; it is better than handcarders!

I’ve also had a little helper with one batch:

This was a rare occasion when I actually took the carder out while she was awake; generally I only do things like card fiber when there are no children either home or awake to be involved.

The light was a bit bright so the color is a little off from how it looks in real life but its fairly close . . .  so far I’ve only managed to card something like 5 oz of fiber and I’ve spun about 2/3 of that . . . something like a bobbin and a half.   At this rate, it might be next year before I actually knit St. Brigid but I will get there eventually!

Must Have Cardi

Life has been getting in the way of my knitting time lately but I have managed a few rows here and there on the Must Have Cardi – the back of it is about 10 inches in so far . . . slow progress but I’ll take any little bit of progress I can get as I’d like t have this off the needles before the weather warms up!

Now this was something I hadn’t done in a while! Looking back on my notes it would appear that the last time I really dyed was THREE YEARS AGO!  Yup! Three whole years since I put up the dyepots!

So, after I dusted everything off I managed to put together 4 batches of roving to dye.  I did 1.5lbs of each color to give myself enough to play with for swatching, yarn variations and a little extra, just in case.  I had narrowed my color choices to something in the cool colors but hadn’t made a final decision on color even as I started dyeing.  I knew I wanted the color above as the base color but somehow managed to end up with a slightly darker shade than I was hoping for . . .

Next up I tried a batch of purple . . .

which turned out to be very purple.  I really like the color but since I had planned to blend the fibers I’m thinking that would be too variegated for the texture I want to knit with this sweater.  Good thing I planned for extra fiber, huh?

So then I took a good look at the blue I was starting with and decided I needed to lighten it up just a bit from what it was, so I came up with this:

And then because I wanted the final product to be a Mediterranean Blue I added this:

Bright, isn’t it?

Once everything was done cooking and drained etc. It all went outside on a drying rack:

The sun was a little bright when I took this so the colors don’t show clearly . . .  here is a better shot of the colors:

Okay, that’s all you get for this post   Next up we’ll blend them on the drum carder and see what the spun singles look like.  Isn’t this fun?

Must Have Carigan

Progress on the back of this sweater has been slow for a couple of reasons . . . I’ve been a bit distracted by wanting to work on spinning samples for the new project which has taken away from time spent on this and the kids have been sick this weekend so we haven’t been out anywhere for a few days. Lately, Must Have has been my “waiting in the car” knitting project and since we haven’t been in the car, I haven’t worked on it much.

Here is the back so far:

Fern

After careful consideration I have decided to go ahead and frog Fern. I had a good chunk of the front and back knit but since the colorway of the yarn is interfering with the stitch definition and the pattern is a rather subtle one, I’ve decided to frog it. I do like the yarn and will likely use it for another project at some point. I think a cabled sweater with bulkier, better defined cables would work well . . . just nothing as subtle as Fern.

Bye, Bye Fern:

St. Brigid

Over the weekend I spun a sample of Romney wool roving that was 2 fleece I purchased when I first started spinning from Skyline Farm and had processed by Zeilinger’s Wool Company.  The fleece were large and I had 2 of them so I have a sizeable amount of this wool left.  It was not the finest Romney but it does spin very easily . . .

and here is a finished skein:

And then Sunday I knit a swatch: the same 27 stitches and 1 repeat of the cable pattern to make an easy comparison.

What I found is that the Romney is courser (this particular fleece, not necessarily all Romney) and hairier than the corriedale cross, something more like a mohair blend actually.  While the swatch does have good stitch definition (I think that is due in large to the 3 plies) I feel this yarn is more of a true outer wear variety . . . and may actually knit an Einstein coat from it later this year.

Here are the two swatches side by side:

I also considered trying a Border Leicester Fleece that I have on hand and some Merino.  The Border Leicester, as it turns out, feels very similar to the Romney and I ruled out the Merino as being too soft and not hard-wearing enough for what I’d like to knit this sweater in based on what I am likely to wear it for.   With all that said, it looks like the Corrie Cross Wool is the clear winner.

Next up, dyeing the fibers!

It has been several years now since I did more than dabble at spinning yarn.  Since the kids came along I’ve managed a few ounces here or there . . . most of it seems to have been left on the bobbins, unplied, with the intention of going back later to add to it.  If the 7 partial bobbins I found when I took my Joy out the other day are any indication, going back later isn’t really an option.

I spent an evening plying off all the random bits, even combining some of the smaller bobbins until I had cleared all but the last 2 of their contents.  Now there are several little skeins of yarns that might be used for small mittens or other little things . . . and several empty bobbins that I can use to start the project I’d like to be working on.

The “Must Have Cardigan” is almost finished; I’m about 1/4 of the way through the back of it now, and I’ve been inspired to work on another, more complicated, Cable sweater pattern.  The next one will be the St. Brigid pattern from Alice Starmore’s Aran Knitting.  The book is due to be republished in the Fall and in the mean time is available at the BPL for in-library use only.

Anyone who has seen my yarn/fiber stash could tell you, it is rather large.  That said, I do not have the right yarn for this sweater.  Not even close actually.  What I do have in the stash is a rather large amount of wool rovings and so I’ve decided to spin the yarn for this sweater.

Most of the spinning I have done has been inspired by the fiber, I have pulled out a bit and spun what ever it “felt” like becoming and for however long it actually held my attention.  There have only been a few instances where I have actually spun an entire fleece or enough of one yarn for something as large as a sweater and this will be the first time that I have started with the idea of the sweater in mind and worked “backward” from the sweater pattern to the proper gauge, ply and color for a particular pattern.

Actually, I will be dyeing, carding & spinning the yarn for this sweater.   There are several wools available to choose from and given the size of the project I thought it best to start a the beginning and actually sample at least 2-3 fibers before deciding which I liked best for the pattern.

Here is the first candidate: Corriedale Cross from Ashland Bay.  This is a true 3-ply, 9 wpi before setting the twist.

The whole sample skein is .8 oz:

Once the twist had been set the yarn still seems to measure 9 wpi, which is great news since that is the size needed for the pattern.  I then decided to knit a swatch of one of the cable patterns from the sweater (1 repeat worth) in order to see how the cables would appear in the yarn.

So far I really like the way the cables stand out in this yarn and it has a light and soft handle when working with it.  There is a strong possibility that this will be the fiber I choose to work this sweater in . . . but I plan to sample at least 1 more (maybe 2) fibers before actually making a decision.  Once the other fiber(s) have been spun and swatched I’ll compare the swatches and decide from that which is best suited to the pattern.

Next up, Romney that I purchased a few years back from Melissa at Skylines Farm.  I hope to spin up the sample this evening and be able to knit the swatch over the weekend . . . perhaps a post about that on Monday