Maia Spins

Spin-Alongs!

I have joined two spin-alongs.

Spun Stitches

This spin-along is about spinning and knitting a shawl.  I have wanted to do this for a while, so this is perfect.  I have no idea what shawl I will knit.  I'll wait for the yarn to tell me what it wants to be.

Tour de Fleece

Spin along with the riders in the Tour de France.  Spin on days the riders ride, spin fast on time trial days, and above all wear yellow!  Roger loves the Tour and I love spinning (and Roger!).  Ah, togetherness.

But, Maia (I hear you saying), what are you going to spin?  Thanks for asking.  I have these lovelies:

Tussah silk for a shawl!

The top one is 2 oz of tussah top naturally dyed in cutch (brown) with a touch of madder (orange) to warm the brown a bit.  It was vat dyed.  To get color variation, I tied the length in a couple of places.  Sort of a tie-dye technique.

The bottom is 2 oz of tussah top naturally dyed in osage orange (yellow), madder (orange), and cochineal (pink).  I was thinking about plying these together.  I fear that that would muddy the lovely colors in the bottom silk.  Maybe I'll dye more in yellow.  I love yellow and it is appropriate.

Sweater Fiber!

The red is Targhee fleece naturally dyed in the same vat as the brown tussah above.  Hard to believe isn't it?  The plum is PolyPay fleece naturally dyed in Lac.  I may have the fleeces mixed up.  I have it written down somewhere.  The fleece comes from Homestead Wool & Gift Farm.  These nice folks taken in abandoned and injured farm animals and give them a life of luxury and frolicking in green fields.  They sell fleece (raw and washed), some dyed.  Everything I got (more than I'm showing here) was well prepared and nice fiber.  Check them out.

Below the fleece is three colors of tussah naturally dyed with cutch (brown), osage orange (yellow) and cochineal with a touch of logwood grey (mauve).  I started with two pounds of raw fleece and one pound of silk.  There is at least a half pound of each fleece remaining after washing.  I should have plenty for a sweater.  I need to decide how I want to spin it.  I'll do some carding and spin a few samples.

In other news

I got my invitation to Ravelry!  Wow!  It is pretty cool.  If you are already there, feel free to friend me.  I use the clever handle: Maia.  Sometimes it is very handy to have an unusual name.  I don't have much up yet; I just joined yesterday.

I am working on a new pair of Sidewinders.  This pair is for the write up I am going to do on my mods to Nona's wonderful pattern.  Before doing this, I checked with Nona and got her permission.  It is very important to me that I have her blessing.  As a designer, I would appreciate someone checking with me first. 

The method uses two circular needles (I'm thinking it is possibleto use magic loop too, long needle would be recommended).  The cuff is on the right, the toe on the left, and the heel at the bottom.  You may also notice some extra width above the heel.  I am adding a few short-rows to create more space for my high arches.  There is a blue thread basted along the cast-on (Turkish).  Click to see a bigger image.

I have had trouble with this sock.  The first one (got to 3/4 done) was inadvertently knit on one 2.75 mm needle and one 3 mm needle.  Frogged.  The second one (got almost half done) pooled in a big way and I couldn't stand it.  Frogged.  Hopefully, the third will stick.  So far, so good. 

All the frogging gave me this bit of fleeting art.  I rewound the yarn cake and it held its shape until the last few yards.  I had to snap a picture. 

The yarn is the C*EYE*ber Fiber I got on the Marin Yarn Crawl.  It is beautiful and very soft.  I'm not sure if I am a fan or not.  The plies are softly plied together leading them to unply and split as I knit.  The soft plying contributes to the softness, but I worry that it may compromise how well it will wear for socks.  We shall see.

Last but not least, Happy Independence Day!

Summer of Socks

Summer of Socks is off and running.  You can see lots of progress pictures and a few finished objects on the Flickr group.

ETA: I am on Flickr now.  Check out my pictures here.  Feel free to add me as a contact.  And, if you know of any cool groups on Flickr, let me know.  I think this is going to be addicting.

My first pair of the summer are off the needles.   You may notice that the right sock is inside out.  I like the way they look and can't decide which way to wear them.

They are another pair of Sidewinders, but with a twist.  I knit these on two circular needles which eliminates the seam under the toes.

Pattern: Sidewinders by Nona

Yarn: Socks That Rock medium weight, Carbon colorway

Needles: 2 - 3mm Addi Turbo Lace circular needles

ETA: A write-up of how I do Sidewinders on 2 circular needles is now available here.

I start by casting on at the ankle instead of the mid-line of the sole using the Turkish Cast-on.

After a couple of rows, you can see the heel (top middle), toe (left), and cuff (right) starting to take shape.
No,  I am not making heavy metal gestures.  The sock was trying to curl up.  I was moving my hand away and snapping a picture at the same time.

At the halfway point, it looks like a sock.

(I am LOVING this old picnic table for taking pictures!  Hubby made it about 12 years ago when we lived in Seattle.  The weathered look is so great)

Here it is with the knitting done, but the grafting is not yet done. 

Same state just moved around to show the open ankle.  As you can see, this method starts at one ankle and works from the cuff around the toe, over the heel to the cuff.  Then the sock is turned and worked back the way you just came.  (Make sense?  I think I am confusing myself.)  If you have knit Nona's pattern, it is quite logical.  In addition to eliminating the toe seam, this version decreases the amount of grafting required by about a third.

I made a few modifications to accommodate the yarn.  This is a sport weight yarn knit at 6.5 sts/in instead of the original 7.5 sts/in.  I just used ratios to find the number of stitches and rows at the new gauge. 

I also shortened the cuff and made the short row calf shaping like my first pair of Sidewinders.

Verdict?  Love 'em!

Next on the sock needles is the MerLin yarn I naturally dyed.  These will be for my sweet hubbinator.  He likes simple, so they will be plain ol' Vanilla socks.  Toe-up so I can see how far the yarn (100g) goes.

I am almost at the heel flap now, but this picture looked so good (loving that backdrop!) that I couldn't deny it its time.