I’m alive I swear!

This year has been a whirlwind of craziness. At least once a week I would think to myself that I need to try to start up my blog again, but there never seemed to be the time. The long and short of it is, I got a real big girl full time job, so the past few months I have been working 40 hours a week, still doing grad school work, hanging out with friends and family, and still try to get some crafting in.

This year I won’t be doing a knitting recap, because I really have made that much stuff this year. But some exciting stuff has been happening so for my first post back I will just let you see my year in instagram photos. Oh and by the way exciting news I got a spinning wheel!

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And it is done!

A post shared by Patricia (@pattymatt) on Aug 9, 2014 at 8:16pm PDT

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Finally got pictures of my self-stripping shawl.

A post shared by Patricia (@pattymatt) on Aug 26, 2014 at 9:53pm PDT

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My finished pendulum.

A post shared by Patricia (@pattymatt) on Aug 26, 2014 at 9:52pm PDT

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My patch is done!

A post shared by Patricia (@pattymatt) on Oct 25, 2014 at 8:16am PDT

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His mustache finally grew in! #noknitsherlock

A post shared by Patricia (@pattymatt) on Nov 2, 2014 at 6:52pm PST

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All washed and pretty! 556 yards of honey bear by @nbknitting spun on my spindle and 280 yards of taylored fibers colorway Granny Smith spun on my wheel. I think I did a pretty good job on the Granny Smith especially since it was my first time on the wheel.

A post shared by Patricia (@pattymatt) on Nov 13, 2014 at 5:19pm PST

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All plied, still a little over spun but close to the look that I was attempting

A post shared by Patricia (@pattymatt) on Dec 15, 2014 at 8:14am PST

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I can no longer say I can't crotchet.

A post shared by Patricia (@pattymatt) on Dec 26, 2014 at 6:53pm PST

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All spun up and ready for plying in the morning. #nbk #northboundknitting #spinnersofinstagram #spinning

A post shared by Patricia (@pattymatt) on Dec 30, 2014 at 9:21pm PST

Well I hope to get back to making this more of a regular thing. I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and that you will have a happy New Year!

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Spin me right round

Here is my latest spin and I am so proud of it! It’s called Pot Luck and I  got 274 yards 2 ply out of 4 oz and I would have to say that it is pretty much a sport weight yarn.

Here is the fiber before I started predrafting it

Here’s a picture before I started plying it.

Plied and on the niddy noddy.

Before it’s bath.

After it’s bath, with a little mini skein of leftover.

I couldn’t be happier with the progress I have made. I am sorry for the blog being silent for so long, but I hadn’t really had much to say because nothing was getting finished. I should have some more posts coming your way soon.

The Tour de Fleece is happening right now and I am participating, but not as much as I would like because my time is so limited.

Here are a few pictures of what I have done so far.

Isn’t it pretty? Its a polwarth/silk blend and I absolutely love it. I think I have enjoyed this fiber content the most to spin with. I will give you more detail about the yarn once I finish it. So far it seems to be my most even spin yet, but I will have to wait and finish to see if that is true or not.

Have you been spinning in the Tour de Fleece? What have you been spinning lately?

No time

Nothing can steal all of your free time like two part-time jobs and being a full time grad. Just recently I got a new part-time job that I have been putting in anywhere from 25 to I think maybe 35 hours on top of babysitting for a new (I switched families) family part-time. Needless to say there hasn’t been much spinning or knitting happening recently. Just recently have I started finding time to squeeze it in and I am seeing some progress being made (not as much progress as I am used to though).

So I figured until I had some time to talk about what’s on my needles or spindle and until I finish something I figured I would show you my newly organized stash.

Scrap balls go here.

Large amount of scrap go in the tubs (like when I have one or two skeins leftover from a sweater).

My favorite yarn get’s hung on the wall as art.

I used to love having my stash on display and seeing everything that I can look forward to working on, but just recently with how busy I am this is the first time in my life that my stash is actually stressing me out because I hardly have time to work on it.

Spinning Away

For my second handspun project I decided to try out a different breed of sheep for the fiber, try a dyed fiber, and to try to ply it.  Even with all of those firsts I think it came out really well.

The fiber brand I purchased was Malabrigo’s Nube. I was warned by an experienced drop spindler to no expect a very even thin yarn, which I am glad that I received that warning because I would have been very frustrated if I tried to produce a thin yarn. If you have ever worked with Malabrigos single ply you have probably have seen that the yarn in places is slightly felted together, that is also the case with their fiber. It isn’t necessarily felted together, but the fiber doesn’t want to draft out that much.

Here is the fiber before I went to spin it up.

The fiber is a 100% merino wool which I found slightly more difficult to work with also because of its short staple. The color of this fiber is gorgeous though, the colorway is Arco Iris and totally made up for any difficulties I had with spinning it.

This is a picture of the first half of the braid spun up.

Here’s a picture of the two singles right before I went to ply them.

My twist direction for the singles was a S ply (meaning I spun it up clockwise) and then when I went to ply it I did Z ply (meaning when I plied it I spun the spindle counter-clockwise).

Here is a picture of the yarn plied on my niddy noddy. Doesn’t it look pretty? It’s hard to believe, but before this picture was taken the freshly spun yarn looked like this:

While I was taken the plied yarn and wrapping it on to the niddy noddy one of the pvc piping t-connectors snapped and all of the yarn flew off of the niddy noddy turning into the picture above (the t-connector is fixed in the picture above which is why the niddy noddy isn’t in pieces).

Now here is the final product all washed and pretty.

I haven’t checked the yarn weight yet but there is 165 yards to 4oz.

Even with the issues I had with the fiber not wanting to draft out, I am really happy with the end result and I feel like I will probably get more Malabrigo fiber at some point.

Liebster Award Nominees

Well here are my 11 nominees for the Liebster Award:

1. Tracey Cox

2. Pixelknit’s Ponderings

3. Nearlythere

4. My Tangled Yarn Knitting Adventures

5. From the Purl Side

6. If and any

7. Klever Knits

8. Woolen Diversons

9. Weekend Knitter

10. Skeinny Dipping

11. Knitspiring Odyssey

These are my Questions:

1. Why did you start this blog?

2. What’s your favorite craft? Spinning, knitting, or yarn dying?

3. What is you favorite knitting, spinning, yarn dying, and/or general crafting book?

5. When did you start knitting, spinning, and/or yarn dying?

6. Why did you start crafting?

7. How long have you been crafting?

8. Favorite yarn brands?

9. What is your favorite type of project?

10. What’s your favorite knitting, spinning, and/or yarn dying magazine?

11. Favorite designers?

Please check out all of these blogs! I have been inspired and have learned various things from all of these blogs.

And to my nominees, thank you for blogging and sharing your love for your craft. I hope you all have the opportunity to participate in the award! I can’t wait to read your responses to my questions and to see who you nominate!

Patricia

Liebster Award

Hello to all of my wonderful followers! Just recently I was nominated for the Liebster Award by Mika, author of the blog The Novelty Knitter! I was honored and more than happy accept, I never imagined that my blog would be as popular as it is now and I only have you all who read the blog to thank for my success.

 

These are the rules to the Liebster Award:                                                

1. Answer questions from the blogger who nominated you.
2. Nominate 11 new blogs with 500 followers or less.
3. Post 11 new questions for your nominees to answer.
4. Tag your nominees and leave a comment on their blog letting them know they have been nominated.

Questions

1. Why did you start this blog?

I started this blog after my friends who were knitters graduated from college and moved away leaving me with no one to talk about knitting with. So I created this blog essentially as an outlet to talk about my knitting and whatever other crafts I was currently into so I wasn’t boring my friends and family who weren’t knitters.

2. What are your goals for your blog?

Honestly I never imagined anyone would ever read my blog or at least not read it regularly. I guess if I had to choose a goal it would be just that my blog would be inspiring, helpful, and encouraging to whoever choose to read it.

3. What are your sources of inspiration?

My sources of inspiration are vast. I am inspired by other knitters, crafters, spinners, nature, design, art, people, and well just the world around me.

5. What are your other hobbies besides blogging?

I have many hobbies. Of course I love to knit and spinning is also becoming a favorite of mine. I also like to sew, take photos, make jewelry, and do other crafts.

6. Why did you start crafting?

Honestly I have no clue why I started crafting, I have just been doing it as long as I can remember. I guess I craft because it makes me happy to create things.

7. How long have you been crafting?

I have been a serious crafter since 2009, but I have been doing crafts for as long as I can remember.

8. Favorite yarn brands?

Oh this question is a tough one. I would have to say that Northbound Knitting is one of my all time favorites. I also really love Madelinetosh. Those two are at the top then my other favorites are: Brooklyn Tweed, Quince & Co., Malabrigo, Manos Del Uruguay, Cascade, Dream in Color, and Luna Grey.

9. What is your favorite type of project?

My favorite project type would have to be either sweaters or shawls. I seem to make those the most.

10. Vogue Knitting or Interweave?

I’m definitely an Interweave person. I have actually never purchased a Vogue Knitting magazine.

11. Favorite designers?

This is another tough one to narrow down, but here it goes. I like Jane Richmond, Babycocktails, Lisa Mutch, Veera Välimäki, Shannon Cook, Alicia Plummer, Savory Knitting, Bristol Ivy, Amy Miller, Martina Behm, Hilary Smith Callis, Isabell Kraemer, Cecily Glowik MacDonald, Hannah Fettig, Dieuwke van Mulligen, Gudrun Johnston, Stephen West, Hiroko Fukatsu, Jared Flood, and Melissa Schaschwary. I know there are even more designers that I like, but these are the ones that I either have made quite a few projects from or am planning to make more of their designs in the near future.

*I will post the people I nominate and their questions in my next post.

 

Variegated Yarn

Variegated yarn is oh so pretty, but in my opinion oh so difficult to work with. It’s hard to work with because it is difficult to find a pattern that it would work for. Like I referenced earlier in the blog that highly variegated yarn is a hard medium to find the perfect canvas for. The reason it is so difficult is because you need a blank canvas so the yarn doesn’t distract from the pattern/project. Another thing that you need to think about is the fact that variegated yarn has a tendency to pool. I for one am not a fan of pooling.

The socks are a great example of pooling, but it works because it makes a spiral. The only thing I’m kind of concerned about is that I am afraid that the pattern is getting over shadowed by the pooling, but I am moving forward with it because it is a sock so it won’t be seen as much as other projects.

For those reason I haven’t purchased a variegated yarn in about two or three years now. Now you may be wondering if I haven’t done it in that long and I have such strong reservations how is it I have finished to projects recently with variegated yarn and that is because when I purchased it I didn’t know that it was going to be variegated and so when it came to me I had to be creative and find projects that would do the yarn and the pattern justice. As you probably have seen if you read the blog posts about my Trillian and Deviate I have found a few perfect patterns for that work great with variegated yarns. Martina Behm (designer of the Trillian) has many other projects that would work for variegated yarn.

Trillian

 

My deviate

With all of this being said I have changed my stance on variegated yarn. No it won’t be my go to purchase, and no I won’t be going out and buying it all the time. But when I find a great variegated yarn I will probably get it, it will probably be an impulsive buy, but that is okay.

Deviate

Well I finished another shawl. Which is no surprise really because well I love shawls and I try to keep  at least one on the needles at all times. I don’t know what it is but they are just so much fun and their are so many great patterns out their.

This shawl is Deviate from Lisa Mutch/Northbound Knitting and well just as I expected it was so much fun to knit. I just adored the fact that there was a purely stockinette side and then a garter side. It was like getting the best of both worlds. On top of it all Deviate is another great shawl for a highly variegated yarn. I rarely work with variegated yarn, not because I don’t like it, but because it is, in my opinion a difficult medium to find the right canvas for (I will go into further detail in a later post).

The yarn for this was actually dyed by Lisa/Northbound Knitting, it was a part of her cocktails KAL/SAL. The Trillian was too. This yarn just like the yarn for Trillian was amazing to work with. It is an Alpaca, Silk, Cashmere blend and it was heavenly to work with and well the colors together are to die for. Lisa has such a way with color, I am starting to get more and more of her yarn in different bases and each base is lovely in it’s own right (she also dyes fiber and I can’t wait to get my hands on some of that). So besides being a great designer she is a wonderful yarn dyer.

Okay so enough gushing, here are some more pictures.

Pattern: Deviate

Project Page: here

Yarn: Northbound Knitting Alpaca/Silk/Cashmere

Colorway: More Gin Please

Mods: To use up more as much of this lovely yarn as possible after I completed the last section I repeated the other section until I used almost all of the yarn and then bound off.

My first Handspun

Well I have done it, I have spun up my first large quantity of handspun yarn and surprisingly I didn’t lose interest with it. I mean it is 100% undyed wool, it had nothing interesting or pretty to keep me going. What kept me going was my desire to learn, to get better, and to produce a finished item that I would be proud of.

For my first handspun I decided to leave them singles so I could get the most yardage for the amount of time put in.

Here’s a picture of it before it’s bath. As you can see it is very kinky and in places over spun. So from reading different things I decided that I was going to shock the wool by washing it in hot, then cold, then hot and then cold water, thwacking it against the porch railings outside, and then hung them weighed them down with hangers. The end result looks a lot more like yarn.

The yarn hanging from the porch.

Doesn’t it look pretty! The end result is  695 yards single ply lace/fingering weight 100% cheviot yarn.

The comparison between the two is crazy. It’s hard to believe that the yarn on the left turned into the yarn on the right.

Now I am now where close to being done with this yarn because I plan to dye it (I’m still unsure of what color) and then knit it up (still unsure of that too). Besides that I am contemplating getting more fiber so I can have more like 800-1000 yards to play with. 800-1000 yards has a lot more possibilities over 695 yards. So this isn’t the last that you have seen of this yarn.

In the next post I will talk about the latest yarn that I just spun up, it is colorful and pretty and I tried some new things!

Nachtfalter

Well a few weeks ago I finished my Nachtfalter (my submission for the Tops, Tanks, and Tees KAL), but with all of the spinning and knitting that I have been doing I am just getting around to posting about it now.

The Nachtfalter is a fun and addictive knit that looks way harder than it actually is, as long as you can read a pattern, knit and purl you should be fine.

The butterfly lace section of the top was a lot of fun and was very easy to memorize. After the first lace repeat section was done I had the pattern memorized and I didn’t have to look at it until it came to the garter section.

I lengthened everything about this top which I am very glad I did because I prefer my tops to be longer.

Pattern: Nachtfalter

Project page: here

Yarn: Jilly by Dream in Color

Colorway: Poppy

Mods: I did the size small but followed the measurements for large on the baby cable ribbing and butterfly lace, medium for the sleeve holes, and small for the top garter section. I also used a fingering weight yarn, the pattern calls sport/dk, but I got gauge with the exact needles size called for.

I surprisingly only used 682 yards which I am kind of glad because I loved the yarn and color and now I have some left over yarn to use for stripes or something small.

The yarn is to die for, it is up there in my top three favorite single ply yarns. Northbound Knitting and Madelinetosh’s tosh merino light being the other two. Jilly is one of Dream in Color’s newest bases and it is amazing and has a ton of fabulous colors. I had a hard time picking what colors and I ended up buying two other colors  for other things.