It’s been a productive week here at Casa de Yarn Love. So far I have:
*Knit one complete pair of Noro socks
*Finished one Vinnland Sock in Trekking XXL and completed 30% of the second.
*Dyed 5 ounces merino/tencel roving in three solid colors. (1.6 -ish ounces each color) Spun the singles and plied them into a single skein. Destined to be mittens for my No Hum Drum Mittens swap partner.
* Dyed two more skeins of yarn for the mittens once I figured out the hand-spun wasn’t going to be nearly enough. Now I have a solid skein of merino/tencel fingering weight yarn and one variegated skein. They’ll be held together as I knit so that it mimics the hand spun yarn. We’ll see if it works.
And all that was just in my “play time” – it doesn’t include any yarn that I’ve dyed for the business. Thoughts about said projects in no particular order:
Mitten Swap
Not going like I’d prefer. Mostly because I forgot that the tencel content of the roving really makes this yarn dense and heavy….with little yardage compared to spinning 100% wool or the wool/bamboo blend. That means I have a lot of work into a skein that weighs 5.2 ounces and only contains 175 yards. Not nearly enough for the project. Oh well, that’s where the two newly dyed yarns come into play.
We’ll see if I end up combining all three yarns. I like the hand-spun by itself. I like the two hand dyed yarns, too. I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to combine all three. Oi. Now onto the design phase. Here’s the pattern that won the most votes for the base pattern: Spooky Cabled Armwarmers. Now to swatch, knit and design the flip top.
Noro Socks
I love the look of the Noro sock yarn. The color repeats and color combination are amazing. However, this yarn is not as soft or elastic as other sock yarns I’m used to working with. We’ll see if they grow on me. The upside is that because I prefer shorter length cuffs, I only used 50 out of 100 grams in the skein. I’ll get two pairs from a single skein. That makes a girl happy. I anticipate that I’ll be using this yarn again because the color is too amazing to get past. However I’ll probably attempt to spin up some “Noro” sock yarn on the wheel out of a softer fiber. I’d like a bit more elasticity. My current pair, while it fits, tends to slouch through the cuff more than it ought.
Vinnland Socks in Trekking XXL
Bad yarn/pattern combo here. The pattern is gorgeous, and I thought the Trekking would look like the Noro when it knit up. It doesn’t. It’s very tweedy or marled looking and the color takes away from the beauty of the pattern. I have some mostly solid spring green Scarlett sock yarn dyed up to knit this again. I want the pretty pattern to show! Vinnland is a great pattern, and I want another pair in a solid color.
More later, I have to go dye now. I gave myself until the Jet album was done burning to blog….and it’s just finished.
Dyeing to Knit 