It's amazing what a difference has been made by the change in stitch pattern. I estimate that the back knit in double moss stitch took nearly a third less yarn than the same piece knit in the single moss stitch which rules out any worries about running out of yarn on this piece.
I had planned to be slightly further along on this piece by this time but I got rather distracted by handspinning over the weekend. On Saturday I went to the second drop spindling session at iknit where I spun up the rest of the mohair that I bought at the Oxfordshire Craft Fair last year and learnt a neat trick for plying two ends of the same single together without a bobbin in sight. The secret is to wind off the single loosely* around your hand keeping a hold of the starting end. When you've finished winding you just attach both ends to the leader and start plying, rather like knitting from both ends of a centre pull ball. There are more coherent instructions in the Winter '05 issue of Knitty.
Armed with this knowledge I headed home and got busy plying.
It looks just like real yarn!
Encouraged by this success I set about spinning up and plying any other fibre I had in the house.
This is merino top that I picked up at the Handweaver's Studio last August. I'm getting in lots of practice on the remainder of this as I've just placed an order with Wingham Woolwork (after a tip from Megan) for 400g of Blue Faced Leicester Humbug Tops. This looks like lovely stuff and I'm hoping to spin up enough for a hat and/or some mittens.
* to avoid cutting off circulation to the fingers and so that you can slip the yarn onto your wrist. Plying one-handed is not easy!
2 comments:
Your second minimalist cardigan back looks amazing! I'm glad you are happy with the colours and the revised moss stitch. Your yarn is beautiful also; the spinning is taking over!
Your handspun looks wonderful. The cardi is looking great too. How did you cope with all that moss stitch?
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