Heading into space with Stephen

So a few weeks ago I was randomly scrolling on Ravelry and noticed a pattern placeholder for Stephen West’s upcoming annual Mystery Shawl KAL. And I was intrigued. I”m not a huge KAL person - I tend to be the one jumping on the bandwagon of a particular pattern approximately 5 years after everyone else - and I’m not a huge fan of many of Stephen’s designs (So. Much. Neon.) But…I’ve been sorely lacking in knitting mojo for a long time now, and I was in the midst of cleaning out and reorganizing my stash closet, so I took a closer look.

Two key points that sold me on joining this KAL: Geometric and gradient - I could use colors that were related to each other instead of having to throw things together and hope that they would look good in the final product, and I adore geometric motifs. The shawl also only calls for 1520 yds (so 4 skeins of ~380 yds each) so likely won’t end up being large enough to need to be blocked on a king-sized bed.

And then there was my stash clean out - maybe I could spin the yarn for the KAL and kill 2 birds with 1 stone: kick start some knitting and reduce the pile of wool that I needed to cram back into my closet. Win, win, right?

I pulled out some Victoria Sponge batts from long ago and decided to take a whirl with spinning them up and seeing how they might work together for a “gradient”. These batts were an experiment from many years ago at layering one color/type of fiber in-between 2 outer layers, like the jam in a traditional Victoria Sponge cake. I didn’t have 4 sets of batts in a true light-to-dark gradient, but I did find 4 different colors that I thought could potentially work together.

Color 1 is 66% undyded BFL and 33% natural brown Corriedale. Color 2 is a mix of 2 different batts - one set was 50% BFL (green) and 50% Wensleydale (gold shades) and the second was 66% natural Romney and 33% BFL in green and purple.

Moving to the second row of the gallery, Color 3 is 50% purple Charollais and 50% Wensleydale. Finally, the pi nk batts for Color 4 are 50% grey Shetland, 25% pink BFL and 25% pink Wensleydale.

Sort of a gradient

All batts were stripped lengthwise into 3-4 pieces and spun with a short forward draw at a 1:15 ration on may Lendrum. They were then plied at 1:12 on the same wheel - for some of them (#3 in particular) I probably should have plied at a slightly lower ratio as it’s somewhat overplied, but so be it!

The good news is that I had a really good time spinning these batts and it’s great to have them spun up as examples of what happens with that type of color layering.

The bad news is that I don’t have enough yarn for the KAL - I needed about 380 yards of each, and what I ended up with is well short of that (Color 1: 290 yds; Color 2: 186 yds; Color 3: 177 yds; Color 4: 299 yds). It’s a good example of how longwools (like Wensleydale) can affect yardage - I find that they tend to create a very dense yarn, without the loft and spring of something with some more crimpy fibers like Corriedale.

So now I will have to stop by a yarn store this week and grab myself some skeins for the KAL - such a sad state of affairs! It might turn out that I have enough here to do the shawl, but since I don’t have any idea how much yardage of each color is needed, I’m not brave enough to start off with these and hope for the best! If it turns out I don’t have enough, I think the first and last colors will work really well together for a color work project - I have a bulky cowl design I need to get out that they might work well for if held double?

Edinburgh Yarn Festival, Skyesong and Fibre Club updates

Quantum Dots, which will be available at EYF on some super soft Falkland merino

Well. It seems like the last almost four weeks since Unravel have flown by in a blur of wool and dye and chaos. It seems that way because they have! I've been full on prepping for Edinburgh Yarn Festival, which opens for classes today and for vast and fantastic stash enhancement on Friday. I've sent off five (!) boxes of fluff, have crammed a pile more into my luggage, and will be on a train northward in just a few hours, just in time to set up.

However, a few other things have happened in the last few weeks that I'd like to highlight. First off, slots are now open for Q2 of the 2016 Lab Goddess Fibre Club. The club runs £45 plus actual shipping cost (depending on location), and will include three monthly shipments of an exclusive colourway inspired by a woman scientist, either past or current. Check out the Fibre Club page to see past colourways and to book your space now.

Current fibre club members: parcels will ship out next week, and I hope you like this month's instalment!

Skyesong in Broadbean merino/flax

Secondly - I have a new pattern out! Skyesong is a lace shawl designed for handspun, and I'm super thrilled that it's been published in the new issue of Knitty. The body of the shawl is worked in a garter lace pattern (knit on every row - woot!) until it is the desired size, and then the edge is finished with a border worked sideways and attached to the live stitches.

One important thing to mention: this is proper lace knitting, with things happening on both the right and wrong side rows. However, the body repeat is only four rows long, so it's not too difficult to get into a rhythm. The edging is more complicated and longer (20 rows), but the stitch count changes on every row, so it's pretty straightforward to figure out where you are in the repeat as you go on.

The pattern includes two sizes - the small version was knit up in fingering-weight yarn spun from some gorgeous wool/flax sliver that I got at Spunky Eclectic a couple of summers ago, in the Lobster colourway. The larger version was worked in my own 60% merino/40% flax top, dyed in the Broadbean colourway.

I'll have plenty of the merino/flax top at EYF this weekend, in both semisolid and variegated colourways, so if you're inspired for a little lacey shawl project, please stop by!

Fait accompli

I've just returned from a trip to the post office, to send out a very special pile of knitwear.

It's been a bit of a crazy few months while I've been working on this collection. I've had a few shows, looked at a lot of very expensive and not very nice property, been back to the States on a scouting trip against the possibility of moving back next summer, seen family, come back, put on a Yarn Crawl and Marketplace, seen more expensive real estate, starting visiting secondary schools with my daughter, put in an offer on a house, had the offer accepted...you get the idea. And all the while I've been plugging away at this accessory collection, in the fantastic Tundra from the Fibre Co.

As the pieces have only just gone off for their photo shoots, I'm not going to reveal too much, but I will share these details: there are three hats, two pairs of fingerless mitts, two cowls (one of which comes in two sizes) and a long, narrow shawl. All of the pieces have cables and texture - some are all over, some have just one focal cable, some have an all-over cabled pattern. All are worked in bulky weight yarn, so they knit up super fast. They all take between one and three skeins of Tundra, and are super soft and squishy.

Over the next few weeks I'll share more details of each piece and the construction, but I didn't want to go much longer without letting you know that I'm still here, and there is still lots and lots of knitting going on.