Home Turf

I know, that I promised to write a sewing entry next but the weather has been so sunny and summery the last few days, that I have to admit: I didn't sew much or at least I did not take any pictures of the finished muslin.

Instead we spend a lovely day today just at the baltic sea, which luckily, is just around the corner (we drive 5 minutes...). First we went for a walk along the shore and then had some ice-coffee at the beach:



I so love to live here. For me, it's all about the water. I really can not imagine to live in the mountains. I need to be able to see the horizon.

We also took some pictures of Ishbel, inspired by Elems post about taking pictures


(I for myself think, that the pictures are better than the others I took before, but that might be just my opinion and the fact, that there's the beach and the water in the picture)

Heiko that to grab one end of the shawl, since it was a bit windy. (Nothing serious, just a nice breeze, but Ishbel is so lightweight, that even the tiniest bit of movement in the air, will make her want to fly)

The pattern is great. Really easy to follow, once you (and by that I mean I) get your brain around, that using stitchmarkers is not really a good idea, since you would have to move them every other (read RS-row), just make sure, the decreases line up.
I made the double decrease a bit different by slipping them off together, I think, this makes a neater decrease, but that is just my personal style.


So here again the facts:

Pattern: Ishbel by Ysolda Teague. Larger version
Yarn: Marika Jo by Richter Kammgarn. (Found in my MIL livingroom cupboard, when they had to clean it out because they were getting new furniture. I have NO idea how old this yarn is.) Content: 70% Angora, 30% virgin wool
107 gr.

I promise (again) to take pictures of the jacket I'm sewing next!

knit knit knit ssssssrrrrrrrttt

This adds up, what I've done last weeks weekend. Knitting and spinning :) Saturday I went to a meet up with my sewing friends but since I had to go by bus I just took my knitting and no sewingmachine with me. I have to admit, that nearly all the knitting got done while beeing on the bus and just a few stitches during the meeting (but I scored some fabric for a sleeping back for one of the many babies that will be born soon since I have 4 (!!) pregnant friends around). But progress is progess :) Sunday was a really lazy day. I nearly spend 6 hrs spinning up the Corridale sliver ( at least I think it is a sliver not a roving or a batt. It's pretty packed and not really fluffy) that I got from the Woll-Schaf. My second handspun! The handling of the Corridale was different and I think I might have overspun it a bit but I had a few frustrating moments with yarn that "broke". There wasn't any acutally snapping or so but the twist wasn't high enough so the fibers just did not hold together and when I pulled the fibers let go of each other. So I changed to the second largest whorl on my bobbin
(see picture) to give the yarn more twist. As far as I understood, there will be more twist in the fiber when the flyer moves faster without the singles moving onto the bobbin. I have two books here, that I'm currently reading about spinning so hopefully there will be more progress on that. If I bore you with my forays into spinning, just let me know :) After spinning for 6 hrs. I really had to do something else, so I switched to knitting. Ishbel got some rows added. I had a few motivation problems the last weeks, so the only projects I've been working on where the baby booties for my co-worker and the last finishing touches on the OpArt blanket. Both projects showed me progress. I could see them growing/beeing finished. So instead of knitting on my Ishbel (unless you count 1 row here and there) I've spun the corridale. But last sunday was a break-thru moment. I've knitted a whole repeat on Ishbel and now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. (So that will be around 100gr and 1000 meter less stash. yay!) (Since last Tuesday, when I wrote this message Ishbel has been finished. Sorry for not posting this earlier, I just had either no time or light to take decent pictures! Ishbel is now beeing soaked for blocking and I hope to take nice pictures next week. I'm so inspired by Elems great post about taking pictures and I will try to take some too!)
(Ishbel pre-blocking)

My other WIP knittingwise are the Firestarter for Molly, which I named "starting a purple fire". (fire can be purplish, can it?) I finally finished the gusset on the first sock. Boy, that took FOREVAR and also killed my mojo. Yesterday I managed to knit 2 komplete repeats on the leg portion and will add one more before putting the socks on scrapyarn and start the second one. Since Molly really likes a long leg portion, I will knit both socks at the same time when the second one is as long as the first, using up every single meter of the yarn. I so hope, that that will be at a length that Molly likes.

(Again: Progress has been made on this project. The first sock has been moved onto a piece of scrap yarn and is waiting for the second sock to reach the same height as the first. So far I have finished the foot portion and started the gusset. Which was the part that killed my mojo in the first place, having to rip the hole gusset and re-knit it. Urgh. After the gusset the first sock went without any problems. Keep your fingers crossed for the second one)



Since last week I've started spinning some Merino. Boy, that is a lot harder to spin, than the corridale and I have a mixture of over and underspun parts. Maybe I need to switch to the bigger whorl again. I think spinning is something where my inner perfectionist comes out. I want the perfect yarn and I want it now. I know, that this is totally stupid to think but still. I want sockweight yarn, well balanced and evenly plied ;)

And I want to be able to spin the yarn I envision. I'm already dreaming of spinning yarn for the vine yoke cardigan by Isolda from the latest Twist collective.

Speaking of Twist Collective. My next bigger project will be Sylvi. I have 18 skeins of yarn in my stash for it, so that will be a good stash reduction masswise, if not yardwise ;) (meterwise?).

I might sneak in another Tomten jacket. As mentioned, there are a few babies due around me in the next couple of weeks. EEEEK. Nothing finished but the OpArt blanket. I'd better be knitting.

See you soon with a sewing post!