Homestretch Stuff

Border elements for the blanket are coming together quickly. Another dozen and all that will be left to do will be the crocheted seams.

The Nantucket-hooked cat is moving forward, too. Today I timed the work at about 5 minutes per square inch.

Nantucket rug hooking of cat being pestered by crows

Border elements will complete the blanket shown in the previous post

Detail of border pieces

The Really Exciting Part

In an earlier post, "Image Knitting" (April 24), one can see the beginnings of the 4 x 6 blanket depicted below. It only lacks edge-sashing and seaming to be complete. Estimated finished weight = 5 pounds.

The exciting part of making something up as you go (as opposed to following an "outside" design) is in seeing the completed process. As in painting or songwriting, there is the delicious feeling of having gone as far as possible with that particular experiment.

4 x 6 blanket begun in April is nearing completion

Detail of blanket, with probable yarn choices for the edge-sashing

Blanket detail

Detail showing mosaic knitting and stranded blocks

All it needs is a border

Plyed and Sashed

For a word-aficionada, textile arts have quite a lush vocabulary. Plying (a verb) means combining singles to make a stronger strand. Sashing (a noun) is the narrow strip that connects larger elements of a quilt, knitted or sewn.

Yesterday, some plying and some sashing reached completion. So satisfying to see a piece of knitting pinned to a blocking board  or to admire a basket of finished yarn.

Scottish Blackface carder waste will become a rug at some point

Sashing for knitted blanket-quilt being blocked

Balls of unravelled sweater yarn will be made into additional sashing

Carder waste and Ryland's flowers

Two-ply Color Experiments

The very last of the waste locks have been spun into "singles," and I'm plying pairs of different colors together just to see what happens. Red and yellow-green? Purple and orange?

That is the fun of buying fleece by the pound -- if you can dream it up, you can try it!

Bobbins of "singles" ready to be made into two-ply experiments

Carder waste "singles" about to be put into color experiments

A finished two-ply color experiment

Spinner's-eye view of singles being plyed

One Square Inch per Minute

Several months ago, I timed various ways of making yarn. This way, if asked how many hours a project took, I could calculate the answer.

The blanket begun last winter has grown to four square feet. While knitting sashing to extend it, I recorded the minutes-per-inch. One three-inch square took 10 minutes. (To be thorough, one would have to do separate timings to correspond with stitches and rows per inch.)

For this particular project, a rough figure would be: one square inch = one minute.

Progress on the knitted blanket has brought its width to four feet

Sashing for edges of the blanket, width will be about three inches once the piece is blocked

Detail of sashing. The dark yellow fiber in the foreground is Scottish Blackface carder waste.

Tapestry

During the recent decluttering project, a beginner-level tapestry sampler turned up. It will be fun to finish it and start another.

The weaving at the bottom of the photo is a cushion on the chair under the loom.

The weaving under the loom utilizes soumak, an important weaving technique in its own right

More Swatches

Odd bits of wool can lead to yarn-spinning experiments, which then are knitted up into swatches to see what sort of fabric the yarn would make. Some of the experiments reveal a fabric attractive enough to warrant a full-scale project. Other trial runs may be quickly abandoned.

 The swatches pile up, and over time there are enough to put together into blankets. So, even the abandoned bits turn out to be useful.

I can't imagine a nicer covering for one's bed than a colorful, abstract "art project."

More carder waste being swatched

Swatches from unravelled sweaters

Sample from last year's spinning experiment which didn't "have legs"

Mosaic knitting swatch, destined to go into a blanket

Scottish Blackface Sheep

Many of the waste locks incorporated in the project done this week were from Scottish Blackface sheep fleeces I bought two years ago. The locks are very long (see 10" mark on ruler in photo below), which makes them difficult to card.

"Scotties" have long-staple, durable wool which makes excellent carpets.

Border Leicester locks on left and Scottish Blackface locks on right

Scottie mom and her lamb

This is the look of a Blackfaced sheep before shearing (painting is from Ramshorn Studios website)

Some of my "waste" Scottish Blackface locks, 9 or 10 inches in length

Carder Waste Project Done

The waste locks which the drum carder spit out have been hand-carded, spun, and knit. Swatch on blocking frame, below, appears interesting enough to continue spinning until there is enough for a sweater.

A sampling of locks used for the project -- mostly Scottish Blackface

Finished swatch being blocked on a 12" x 12" frame

Detail of the carder waste spun and knitted into a swatch

More carder waste being swatched

Six-ounce Skein

Here is what the waste wool looks like after plying and skeining.

Roving, a small bobbin of "singles," and completed two-ply skein

Skein weighed over six ounces, about the max for my largest bobbin.

Detail of the skein made from carder waste

The "whiskery" looking fiber probably comes from the Scottish Blackface locks included in the mix

"Making Order from Chaos"

One of my teachers used to remark that weaving is fulfilling because one is "making order from chaos." Not sure if this idea works unless you are a "making things from scratch" type, but as a spinner and a weaver, I like it.

I had a box of locks that wouldn't go through the drum carder. (Scottish Blackface locks were particularly snarled up.) As an experiment, I hand carded them and spun up three bobbins of yarn.

The next step: ply the single strands together and knit the yarn into swatches.

Box of matted locks (these are usually discarded)

Detail of "waste" locks

Roving made from waste locks using hand carders

Three bobbins of "singles" spun from waste locks