Osborn Fiber Studio

Memories

A photo album of the interesting places we went, fun things we did, and weird places I spun or knitted.

April 30

May 1

May 2

May 3

May 4

May 5

May 11

May 13

May 15

May 15

May 16

May 17

May 20

May 24

May 25

May 26

Fleece Washing

I’ve already shown you all my spinning, pretty much. I’ve made a total of 4 finished skeins, out of the 10 skeins-worth of prepped qiviut/wool blends that I brought. I have singles finished for one and a half more. That sounds like a lot, except that most of that was the batts I prepped for my CPW. Of the six skeins’ worth I brought to do on my spindles, I’ve completed one skein, and one has singles spun. That’s pretty well on track.

The other big thing I’ve done is prep fleece. Thanks to my mom’s big pot (named Bob), it’s all finished now. At the fleece sale, I bought a Wensleydale fleece and a Clun Forest fleece. I split the former with my mom and the latter with Dionne, and washed both my halves. Mom also pulled out an old Tunis fleece and let me cherry-pick the best bits; the rest will become dryer balls. Here’s some before and after:

Knitting

Vacation knitting! I planned and planned, and I’ve gotten plenty of knitting time in planes, cars, queues, and while watching TV. It has helped me to not buy any yarn so far, though clearly I’ve acquired a little bit of fiber. (In addition to the three half-fleeces above, there are five new braids for me. Ahem.) I did start out by knitting a bunch of hats for cousins that I gave away before remembering to photograph properly. Oops. Maybe Emily will do it for me. But here is where I’m at with the big projects I brought.

If you are part of Kate Davies’ mystery knit-along, and you don’t want spoilers, avert your eyes. Here is my finished clue 1:

There were a few false starts. I misread the pattern at first and changed colours every ridge. Then, I knit through one whole colour repeat – one quarter of the total clue – and decided I didn’t like my arrangement of colours. I swapped two, knit the rest of this, and I’m quite happy with it now. It reminds me of many lanes of traffic all turning a corner. I’m very interested to see where the next clue takes us!

The other main knitting project I’ve had on the go is my Wervel sweater. I swatched very properly, chose a size moderately, and started out. But I started getting an inkling that all was not well right at the beginning.

This is what it looked like after blocking. Swancho indeed.

It has been reduced to its component parts. Ripping out all this work was a wrench, but there are a number of silver linings. (1) As you might be able to tell in the blurry selfie above, there were some big issues with tension in my fair isle. Especially when there was only one stitch in one of the colours, I learned that the single-stitch colour needs to always be held in the left hand for me. That should help with those big gaps. I also need to work on tightening my left-hand tension. (2) I now know exactly how much of the dark blue yarn I have, and I can design the diamonds to look cleaner. (3) I will go down both a needle size and two pattern sizes, and going down a needle size will help with fabric integrity and long-term wear. (4) When I ripped, I made layered balls as you see below. The project was no good for traveling when I was carrying 10 balls of contrast colours around. I could do it in the car, but it would have been no good as a plane project. With all the colours I need, in the amounts I need, all balled up in order and ready to go, the project is much more compact. This was the main reason I wanted to finish the colourwork before Europe anyway, so that downside is avoided.

Just for kicks, I decided to do the top of the yoke in a different green-blue that wasn’t going to be used. I’m optimistic that this second knit will be much faster, and I’ll enjoy putting everything I learned from the first draft into good use.

Special Awards

Finally, here are some random awards for things I liked a lot.

There have been so many special moments with family. I’ve particularly enjoyed spending time with my siblings, and the Sheep and Wool experience was everything I hoped it would be. Being here in May, where the heat isn’t too bad and the flowers are in bloom, has been particularly special. I introduced the girls to mulberries and honeysuckles, and I saw azaleas and rhododendrons in person for the first time in umpteen years. It was just… yeah. Just good.

In two days, we will be all packed up and fly to Europe. This will be a quite different phase of our journey – in Maryland we were dealing with known quantities! Going to Europe, there’s a lot of not knowing what to expect, and I find I’m holding it in a very open hand. I have few expectations, not a lot of specific plans, and whatever happens, I think we’ll have fun. We’re ready.