A Life entangled in Thread, Wool and Needles

..ensure crappy photos. At least with me.

My third sweater is done. It’s the one on the cover page of „fitted knits“ by Stefanie Japel. One thing which stuck me when reading through the pattern was that there is no bust or waist or hip shaping at all! This might not be that uncommon but keeping in mind that the title of the book is fitted knits it seems quite odd. I chose the second smallest  size and the fit on the bust was okay, but going on with this stitch count til the hem meant that there would be too much fabric at my waist and not at all enough to cover my hip ( I doubt that I would haven been able to get it over my hip at all). So I added both waist and hip shaping. Moreover I just didn’t felt happy with having this peephole on the shoulder and the buttoned flaps on the sides of the hem (hey, my hip is big enough. Don’t need to emphasize it any more by adding buttons!). So I eliminated both while knitting. When working the sleeves I first followed the pattern without checking, but after 6 rounds of decreases the sleeve seemed to be much too small for my arm. I double checked the instruction and realized that there must be an error. The decrease section on them ended with an ridiculously small amount of stitches to get around my arm (which are not on the thick side!). So I ripped it up and started again decreasing just a little and it looked much more like a sleeve should do.

This sweater needed much less yarn than I had anticipated! I bought 12 skeins because of me being rather tall and not really skinny but I only used 9. I’m glad that I bought the yarn at a store where it is no problem to return unused yarn because I just don’t need another hat or scarf or whatever.

However my next sweater needs to be of a finer gauge. This one was 13sts/4 inches using 7mm needles and my wrists didn’t felt so well while knitting.

Due to the cloudy weather the pictures are not that pretty. Added the second one because it really shows the tweedy look of the yarn!

Pattern: Textured Tunic by Stefanie Japel

Yarn: Lana Grossa Royal Tweed

Colorway: Purple

…is this:

To be more precise: 6 Bobbins and a load of whorls. Let me explain it a little: we came to the conclusion that it is more practical to have both interchangeable bobbin and flyer whorls so that I can influence the pull in even more than with having a fixed bobbin whorl and different flyer whorls. But in fact the bobbin whorl needs to be attached to the bobbin and spin with it. So he made this metally dowel-like thing on the bobbin whorls (you can see them in the first picture) and the holes in the bobbins so that you could just put it together on the axis.

The orifice is nearly done, just the hole where the thread will come out and wind onto the bobbin needs to get done.

And we had a new idea about how to built something to tension  both drive bands (the one from the big wheel to the gearbox and the doubledrive one from the gearbox to the whorls)! Do you know on mountain bikes this metally stick-like thing which will drop down when you change the gear so that the chain wouldn’t droop? This works exactly like the thing we are planning. We will attach small whorls at two places which can be used to get the right amount of tension on both drive bands. This just seems a much nicer way to get all the tension thing done without having to adjust the whole bobbin part or the gearbox. Just keep asking me why there is no commercial spinning wheel using this principle. Is there a flaw we overlooked? I hope not. But if there is: we will try out all the parts by provisionally assembling all the important parts and check if everything is working nicely.

Sadly I need to wait till friday to see how the work will proceed.

On the knitting front: My textured tunic is done! And I love Lana Grossa Royal Tweed. It’s a really lovely yarn in an even more lovely colorway. However I just didn’t manage to make the photos while there was enough sunlight so I will wait until tomorrow. I just hate artificial lighting when doing photos. Even after adjusting the light balance it just looks awful. And moreover I just have not enough lightbulbs around to get enough light…

Thanks to me having a really bad cold I stopped sitting in the laboratory for this week and so had the chance to take a look on the wheel and what my dad is currently working on.

The grooves for the drive band are milled…

.. and all the bobbins ( I think he made 6) are turned. Just a little sanding still needs to be done..

They are in contrast to the rest of the wheel made from maple wood and will stay in this really light wooden color (or at least are planned to stay this way. I will decide when all the parts of the wheel are done what will get stained.

And some other news: Due to the smaller drive wheel (app. 50 cm), the smallest ratio would be 1:11. My father just didn’t felt that happy with having whorls with less than 3cm in diameter.  We thought about this for quite a while and came to the conclusion that we will include a gearbox ( a little like the way the triple flyer golding wheels work or the Ella, but with the gearbox being optional and having different drive wheels to get a wider range of ratios). So it might be possible to get ratios ranging from 1:5 to 1:30. Jipeee

I just want to pick up the suggestion brought forward by Garnprinzessin that posting a “how to build a spinning wheel instruction” would be a good idea. I thought about it a little and I think I just can’t do it and have the feeling that it won’t be of much help if I would. First of all: I’m personally not that good at woodworking (having done the jewelry case with the help of my father) so I lack the expertise to describe it in every detail. Furthermore I’m not around all the time to look what my father is doing and write it down because I’m only once or twice a week at my parents home. I could describe in really really general words what would need to be done, but then comes the second aspect: To make a wheel the way my father does it quite a few relatively expensive machines are necessary. Having a drilling machine might be not such a big deal, but buying milling, turning and whatever else fancy machines will easily exceed the costs of even a golding wheel. And in case somebody possesses all this machines and knows how to use them I strongly suspect that it wouldn’t be a big problem for this person to built a spinning wheel without my instruction because in my view the structure a spinning wheel needs to have is pretty obvious, at least for a spinner. Why do I tell you all this? I just want to prevent that anybody things that it is because of a “It’s my secret and I won’t share it with anybody” thing that I keep posting just a few pictures and maybe a few lines about what was been done to the wheel in the last few days but no detailed instruction. Enough of this, here are the pictures

The wheel (now about 50 cm in diameter) is assembled and it needed to get turned to get the last bit of unbalance out of it so that it will run absolutely smooth. For this my father needed to modify his turning machine because the diameter would have been too big to fit into the machine in the original state. After a little lengthening of the axis it worked (normally the piece which needs to be turned would sit between the two green bearings which you can see on the photo on the left side of the wheel).

In the next picture you can see how fast the wheel spins while a tool with a really sharp blade (forgot the correct name – even the german one) carrys away the excess wood.

The next photo is taken from the opposite direction to show you a small part of the sawdust created in this process.

And here is the wheel. The grooves for the drive band still need to be milled and the black wood stain is missing. So you can’t call it completed but it still looks neat, doesn’t it?

I can’t wait till friday to see the progress my father made working on the wheel. As far as I know he is now working on the bobbins and the flyer

I’m back home from my trip to Benediktbeuern! It was so wonderful that I’m sure that I will again go there next year (maybe for a bit longer because it was a really really short trip from friday morning to saturday evening). I had the opportunity to meet with lots of people I knew or didn’t knew and…. bought a little bit of wollmeise.

First of all: the train station. It looks so traditional that I had to take a photo (with the camera in my mobile so please excuse the kind of bad quality)…

And then there was the wollmeise….

… and this is what I brought home with me

2 more FOs! In 2 days! Okay okay, these were really small and easy ones…

First one: It get’s colder and my feet were kind of icy in the last days. So I needed another pair of slippers to leave them at my boyfriends home.

Pattern: Fuzzy Feet

Yarn: Wollmeise Merino Lammdochtwolle

Colorway: Granatapfel, Rosenrot(?), Red Hot Chili and quite a few green test skeins

The second one is the first project knitted using my own handspun!

Pattern: Habitat

Roving: Die Wollfabrik, Space Kammzug, 3-ply

Both patterns were written clearly and because of the large needles they were finished really really fast.

Spinning wheel news: After the shipment with the bearing arrived my father started working on the wheel this week. Because of me wishing to have a maximum ratio of 1:25 the wheel needs to be a little bigger (27 inches / 70cm)….

The axis and the place for the drive belt still need to get milled, the spokes need to be polished…… and lots of other things…. As I realized: 70cm is not that small. This won’t be a travel wheel…

…after a few problems with the plans concerning the general construction of the wheel, we came to the conclusion that 50 cm is also okay. Maybe I won’t get the 25:1 ratio, but otherwise there would be issues how to get the other necessary parts of the spinning wheel assembled around this enormous wheel.

..done in this week. Thanks to my pc being temporary not avaidable.

The first project out of “Fitted Knits” is done! I would have expected to be a little more fitted ( I chose a size which seemed to be appropinate. Up until now it’s okay but if the yarn (50% Cotton, 50% Microfiber) relaxes a bit it might get too loose. I hope that the Microfiber in the yarn will prevent any growing in length/ width but who knows? After looking at the projects of other ravelers I realized that I’m not the only one having the feeling that the sweater comes out a little big. I checked my gauge now and then and I’m if anything under the gauge given in the pattern. So It should be as it is a little smaller than what the pattern aimed for…. good for me this time Please excuse the bad quality of this photo, but it was just too dark in this room to get it any better…

Parallel to the sweater I used a few left over yarns to knit a pair of short socks. The colors look much more pleasing than I had anticipated

….. after telling myself that I have used up a lot of yarn and hadn’t bought much yarn in the last month I paid a visit to my local yarn store. And when I looked around me to see what’s new in Lana Grossa Land (they don’t have anything else), I saw “Royal Tweed” in exactly the shade of purple I love. I recognised it as being used in another Fitted Knits sweater and bought a ….little… abount of it. At least enough to get the sweater out of it (by the way it’s the “Textured Tunic” pattern in the book)

I visited a small fair (“Nadel und Faden” in Osnabrück) with a friend (to be more accurate, my friend offered me to go with them) at it was fun! There seem to be a lot more cross stitching people in germany than I have ever thought! It felt like every second booth was about it.

I got hold of a tatting shuttle and a few little skeins of cotton thread. Most tatted pieced I have seen so far (the bigger ones like collars or edgings to garments) are not at all compartible with my wardrobe but I nevertheless want to learn how it is done. And a beginners project like a bookmark might be a good starting point. Apart from that I picked up something which is going to be small christmas present for my parents, so sorry, no photo here. It’s unlikely that they will read this, but there is a small chance. And I don’t want to spoil my own gifts

Lot’s of photos today, eh? Hey, I have one more here! I knitted the first piece out of my own handspun (okayokay, it’s only a swatch to see what the yarn will look like when knitted up. Planning to make the Wisteria sweater by Kate Gilbert out of it).

The yarn I used for it was my first attempt on navajo plying (I had a left over single when I was done with plying…) and it looked really awful because I had kind of problems with what I needed to do and when to do it and how fast. I’m really exited how even the fabric looks! I mean, the yarn was really not the best I did. So I hope that a sweater done with my handspun will not look like a rag. However I’m not 100% happy with the color (just to colorful for a sweater. I would never wear it). I think I will use one black, one purple and one variegated single and make a 3 ply out of them (instead of 3 singles out of variegated roving). So the color will hopefully be a little darker and the purple will be more dominant. I will visit my local spinning store on Tuesday and buy all the roving I need to spin all the yarn for the sweater.

And now onto my current WIP: Socks done in Wollmeise Salamander. I bought this yarn and thought it would be just black and yellow. When I got it last week I realized that I was wrong. There is also a huge amount of green and a little red in it. I had planned to make a new pair of gloves out of them but the pattern I made up wouldn’t work well with the colors.

Rip Rip Rip Part 1.

I was frustrated but couldn’t let go of the plan to make a pair of gloves. Tried a simple pattern just with a ribbed cuff and nothing else on it. Just didn’t liked the way the color looked (the stitchcound was just not high enough to get striping/pooling… which was the effect I had hoped for).

Rip Rip Rip Part 2.

More frustration. And I didn’t had any other wool at hand just to go on to something else (I’m currently at my better halfes home) and to start the textured tunic I need the instruction which was also not here. So I couldn’t just put it aside and distract me with another project. After a few minutes I came to the conclusion that the jaywalker socks might be a good idea. One hour later I was frustrated again because the stitchcount I needed to get these socks to fit my feet was exactly the stitch count necessary to get pooling. As a result the stitchpattern was nearly invisible.

Rip Rip Rip Part 3.

Started on plain socks. No special stitch pattern. Just the normal 64 sts in plain stockinette. And I like the stripey look I get! Woohoo.

It has been a little while since my last post since my computer passed away on Monday. I went to the store where I bough all the components and they replaced both my RAM and the harddrive. Luckily I have 2 harddrives and had saved all the new data on the second one which is 6(?) years old and still working and not on the first one (half a year old and not working any longer). Before all this I made backups both using a Bios recovery program and norton ghost and when I had put the new harddrive in there was no backup data anywhere! I before imagined that al off this was just an issue of starting the recovery program and get the backup data and would be done in an hour or two. No. No recovery without backup data. Haha. I was really mad about this. Thanks to a friend of mine it got finally fixed on Thursday and now all is working again. But in the meantime I realized how much I love being online. Having access to all the information available. One other observation: I’m more productive when I can’t go online! I knitted the whole body of a sweater and a pair of socks since Monday!

I will take a photo of the socks and the sweater once I finished the latter one (approximately on Sunday?)

What else happened? My first Wollmeise sock-club shipment arrived and I love love love the colors. I mean, it’s purple and green!

Apart from black these are my favorite colors! The package included violet-wood dpn’s. They look really nice, but I don’t like to knit with dnp’s. Anybody from Germany in need of dpn’s? Just leave a comment

One FO not mentioned until now: Jaywalker socks. I heard from the problems people had with the fit and I’m no exception. I CAN get them on my feet, but the cuff sections is quite tight so I need to be really really careful… But as I did them toe up I just didn’t wanted to rip it out. And once they are on my feet, they feel great!

And there are also 2 books I looked at while cursing my computer: Nicky Epstein’s “Knitting on the Edge” and “Knitting over the Edge”. When I ordered them I thought of them being totally different (because on said “on” and the other “over”) but I now think they could just be named Book 1 and Book 2. I don’t see a big difference between the patterns/borders featured in them. Or do I get something wrong here? However, I like them. When looking at the borders I had a ton of ideas how to use them… . I’m happy that I bought these books, even through a few of them are a little bit to frilly for me.

P.S. My dad started working on my spinning wheel! Jippeee! Cant’t wait to see the first pieces!

Thanks to the holidays I have lots of time and make a little progress on the pile of book lying next to me.

Selbuvotter – Biography of a Knitting Tradition, written by Terri Shea

(selfpublished, 127 pages, paperback)

I bought this one both because of my love to knit gloves and my curiousness when it comes to traditional Norwegian knitting patterns. The book includes one chapter describing the history of this special knitting tradition, going chronologically from the first appearance of these special selbu knitting style to the role it plays today. Afterwards there is a brief introduction in the needed techniques, for example types of thumb gussets, the traditional way to shape the fingertip and suggestions concerning gauge, needles ect.

However the main part of this book is a collection of selbu style mitten and glove patterns. All the photos are in black and white only which is no big problem because the mittens are all knitted in black and white yarn. A color photo should look nearly the same

Every pattern contains a brief written instruction and a colorchart. The sizes of the 31 included glove/mitten pattern range from children’s small to men’s large and are all done at nearly the same gauge/needlesize (in most cases around 30 sts/4 inches – 2,75mm needle).

So if you’re searching for an opportunity to get your hands on traditional Norwegian patterns this may be a good choice. How about a pair of glove with elks or birds?

No, this is no posting about the Kinder Surprise thing. But it’s kind of related.

I was at a local craft-store today and saw Fimo, a modelling clay my mother and I used to make things with when I was a child. So I took a black and a white package, a few toothpicks and went on a time travel in my childhood.

After realizing that combining black and white can end up in an off-white ….. gray because the black clay stained my hands a little. But since I had thought about buying light grey clay instead of the white because I thought of it being a little more sheepish I don’t really care about it. So here they are:

Right now they are having a good time in the oven