A Life entangled in Thread, Wool and Needles

Last time I met with a few friends in Aachen I saw Kaita knitting with both hands. It just looked so complicated and I was really sure that I would never manage to do it. Especially after a halfhearted attempt to learn english knitting in 2 minutes with a really really slippery yarn

Being alone this evening and seeing the needle with which I knitted the moebius lying right next to me I rushed into a storeroom and found some old oddball of my mom. And after  rows of garter stitch it really worked! I was still much slower than when knitting continental, anyway it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. The only thing which feels really strange is when I have finished one row and have to grab the other end of the circular needle…. it just feels so wrong to do it with my left hand.

Up until now I just practiced knitting because my goal to work fair isle with both hands, so purling is optional right now. I tried it once but what I got wasn’t a purl stitch at all. Maybe I will watch a few youtube videos to get it right.

After gaining a little confidence in the obedience of my right index finger I tried knitting with both hands. Thanks to the moebius there was some yarn left with nearly the same weight as the oddball.  It worked quite okay but I knit a little tighter with the right hand so there is still much room for improvements. Maybe it’s a practice makes perfect thing. As you can see in the photo I only did a few rows to give it a try.

When I tried to make the picture the whole thing wanted to roll up so I had to hold it straight when taking the photo (just to excuse my hand visible there).

After scoring a Moebius-Wrap-Combination on one of the last Wollmeise updates I had the chance to gather my first knitting experience with the Lammdochtwolle. It’s a one-ply worsted weight yarn, really soft and as every other wollmeise yarn smelling of Perwoll (which I like). The Combination included 100g of each color, but I didn’t use it up . I weighted my leftovers and they are about 100g, most of it being Wilder Mohn. I used Red Hot Chili most of the time and Wilder Mohn only for a few rows because I didn’t wanted to add to much pink to the wrap. Pink socks may be okay, but a pink wrap is not what I would like to wear myself. Maybe because of me being kind of a colorless, mainly black wearing person….

The moebius cast-on was kind of strange and the first rows I had the constant feeling of messing it all up. Maybe because of this strange way of knitting on every edge of the wrap. Like a infinity sign bent in the middle. I made a few of the buttonholes larger than indicated in the pattern and added a few rows between them from time to time.

Even through it being quite colorful I hope I will wear it! Maybe most of you won’t understand this, but I have quite complicated relationships with most of my colored garments which leads to not wearing them at all.

Pattern: Moebius Wrap by Wollmeise

Yarn: Wollmeise Merino Lammdochtwolle

Colorway: Granatapfel, Red Hot Chili, Wilder Mohn

Because of my boyfriend having to work in another part of Germany for quite a while I had time to take all my dyestuff and put up a little studio in my parents basement! They don’t need the workplate for a while so I can leave all the stuff there sitting like it is. After dyeing in my really tiny kitchen this is like heaven!

As you can see on the photos its quite handy! The two sinks are perfect for soaking the skeins as well as washing them afterwards. It’s not on the photo, but there is a long clothline above the stove so I can hang up the yarn when space dyeing. You can see the piece of yarn which is knotted on the clothline going into the pot.

 
I managed to dye 5 skeins, all still not completely dried. So maybe I need to wait until tomorrow to skein them and take a few pictures.

.. and a few hours of warm weather later….

The other three colorways can be found in my ravelry stash….

.. is this little octopus. He’s sad because he has no suckers, but he will come over it.

Pattern: Octopus by hansigurumi

Yarn: Cascade 220

Colorway: 8886 and 8914

I finished my first pair of cuff-down socks and after all I think both ways of knitting a sock are okay to me…

The pattern suggested that 64 stitches are stretchy enough to fit most feet, but the socks turned out a little tight. I still think about adding 4 or 8 stitches the next time I work with this pattern…

Pattern: Francie

Yarn: Wollmeise 100% superwash

Colorway: Fratello

Thanks to pentecost I had time to dye a little in my parent’s basement and it was soo much better than doing it in my kitchen.

They have a huge room with two sinks, hot water and a workplate with clothlines above, so I could hook the yarn up on it to space dye. Due to the warm weather the skeins dried incredibly fast…

I have 6 undyed skeins left so there will be definately a little more dyeing in the next weeks. Maybe with photos and a little how-to.

I don’t have enough time for all the hobbies I have jet. Since I started my study I haven’t completed just one painting and after 2 small exhibitions with no new ones I’ve got a bad conscience. It might be due to my tiny tiny room in the dormitory ( 14 square meters aren’t as large as I want them to be ). With lots of fabric, sewing machines and a not at all small stash of yarn I cannot find a place to put the easel. To be honest, I cannot find space to put anything bigger than an average shopping bag without the feeling that all my stuff will fall onto me and is looking like a messy heap. So there will be no painting in the near future I guess. I tell you all this just to stress the fact that there is absolutely no need for a new hobby. In particular one which requires much space.

Today while waiting in the lab because the abrasion tests on a few samples needled an awful lot of time I fumbled around with a little piece of cotton roving which lay beside the machine I was working with. I twisted it between my fingers and got a fairly thin yarn….

I thought about spinning for a while because on the one hand it seemed to be fun, but on the other hand quite labor intensive, expensive and not suitable for my small room. Okay, a drop spindle is cheap and small, but even more labor intensive as it would be with a wheel.

Furthermore I’m fascinated with machines and there are such lovely spinning wheels.

But there is one more flaw for me: I’ve seen many many awesome looking hand spun yarns, but when knitted up .. they don’t get ugly, but most of the beauty isn’t visible in the finished piece. It’s like it would be a better idea to display the yarn in its whole loveliness without ever touching it to do something with it. Especially art yarns tend to be like that for me.

So why spinning? I’m not that fond of putting skeins of hand spun yarn on shelves just to look at them.

Spinning normal yarn without any fancy stuff? Maybe with a dyed roving? Isn’t this too much work compared to the price I pay for an undyed skein and a little dyestuff?

But this is not the right way looking at it, it’s not fair. I knit socks, knowing that they will not last forever and spending more on the yarn than I would ever pay for a pair of socks in a store….

It’s not about the money or the time, but about the process. I love knitting because it calms me down without giving me the feeling of being useless while sitting around. Moreover it prevents me from being bored in situations when I cannot do anything but waiting.

After having written all that I know that spinning could be just like knitting. Being productive with this repetitive, a little monotonous rhythm.

Maybe I need to look for a wheel. The Ladybug looks sooo nice…. Um. Stop it. It might get expensive.

…. It seems that every knitter eventually comes to spinning.

After avoiding sewing the lining for about a month I managed to do it afterall.

So I can finally present my new handbag:

Pattern: Lattice Bag

Yarn: Cascade 220

Colorway: black and purple

After wandering around all the Wollmeise the skeins in my stash I was finally able to get myself to knit a sock with one of them. Up until know I had the feeling that I might screw it up and ruin the yarn….. but hey, after 4 completed and absolutely wearable pairs of socks this is no excuse anymore.

This was the first time I used a pooling yarn, so I decided to knit it in plain stockinette toe up so that the pattern wouldn’t distract the eye from / distort the colors. I tried hard to knit with the same tension and when stretching the socks I cannot see any difference, but nevertheless the one sock pools considerably different. This doesn’t ruin this pair for me, however I fill want to know why this happened. Maybe even tiny tiny differences in tension add up to this…

Thanks to the 150g in each skein of Wollmeise I got pretty long socks! And I have still a little bit left (I have thought about making blanket with leftovers from every sock project….).

The only flaw I see in this yarn is that it’s a little splitty. I haven’t tried up until know, but I could imagine that cabeling without a cable needle might me a little more complicated than when using most other sock yarns. BUT I love the way the color turned out…. and I have seen no dyer who does that saturated colors in such beautiful combinations. So the splitting will not prevent me from buying more of it.

Pattern: a basic toe up one

Yarn: Wollmeise Twin 80/20 Wild Thing

Colorway: Boboli